You’re Welcome

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, Grant.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Kay. I’m calling from Lantana, Texas.

Lantana, Texas. Welcome to the show, Kay.

Hi, Kay. What’s going on?

Well, I have noticed a trend of, particularly when I see people in the media, radio or television, and the host will thank a guest, and the guest, instead of saying, you’re welcome, just says, thank you right back.

And I don’t understand how we’ve gotten away from saying you’re welcome, because like we teach our kids, you know, when someone says thank you, say you’re welcome.

And we kind of don’t have that give and take, it seems, as much anymore.

Yeah, you’re certainly not the only person who’s mentioned that.

Yeah, we’ve got, if I search our inbox and our voicemail for this, we’ve probably received questions about this 50, 60 times over the last few years.

That’s amazing.

Yeah. Let me ask you, when it happens on the radio, does the second person who says thank you, do they emphasize the you?

Do they say thank you?

I bet they do.

Yeah, that sounds right.

So they’re reciprocating the thanks because they see it as a mutual opportunity there, right?

The radio show gets the guest on who talks about a topic that they want to cover, and the guest gets their book or product or company talked about.

So it’s like an exchange of equals.

I almost feel like it’s a generational thing where more and more younger people are saying, there’s something a little bit pompous about saying you’re welcome, like you’re so lucky to speak to me.

You’re welcome. Whereas Grant’s talking about a kind of leveling.

I mean, I’m just reporting this anecdotally, but I think there is a kind of leveling of communication.

Kay, when you and I were growing up, we couldn’t just tweet to a CEO or a famous politician or a celebrity and expect to hear back.

And a lot of kids do that these days.

They expect a certain leveling of the conversation.

Well, with so much of the political conversation going on, when so many politicians and people of service are being interviewed, I just found that odd also that they say thank you.

But it almost makes sense that they’re getting their policies maybe highlighted.

Right, right.

They’re getting airtime.

When we get complaints about this, usually it isn’t in the media.

It’s usually about the day-to-day interactions that you have at, say, the grocery store where there’s a retail or commerce or hospitality component about it.

And there isn’t equilibrium.

There’s definitely one person is serving the other one.

And a lot of people who complain about you’re welcome apparently disappearing, there’s a little asterisk there because it isn’t disappearing, feel that they’re being dishonored or that the other person isn’t respecting them in the way that they need to be respected by giving them the you’re welcome that they’re owed, which is really interesting to me.

Right, right. We get complaints all the time about people saying no problem.

Yeah.

Because the person who says thank you is thinking, well, you work here.

Why would it be a problem for you?

You’re getting paid to deal with me.

But to take this even larger and talk about, I mean, I can talk about this as a really interesting topic.

Your welcome did not really become ensconced as the automatic reply to thank you until the 1960s.

Oh, that’s surprising.

Yeah, when we look in the historical record, even in books of manners and, you know, advice columns in the newspapers and the things that kids are taught in school, it’s not until the 1960s that it’s like this automatic thing that’s expected of you, which is really interesting to me.

Wow.

But the number of other, like people do not at all, for example, has been a common reply to thank you for a very long time, hundreds of years.

Part of it, too, is when you’re in the service industry, you do get tired of saying the same thing over and over.

So you look for variety.

You could say, no worries.

The pleasure is mine.

Don’t mention it.

You bet.

Sure thing.

Think nothing of it.

There’s like, you know, dozens of these replies that lots of people use.

All of them are kind of discounted by the people who prefer your welcome.

Your welcome seems stultified or archaic.

I think your welcome is so rote and ritualized that it’s lost value and that maybe sure or no problem is more genuine, more authentic.

I don’t know. I’m fine with your welcome. What about you, Kay?

You know, I prefer your welcome.

In fact, this came up in a group that I attended last night.

We were talking about how hard it is sometimes to say thank you and accept somebody’s generosity.

To me, that’s respectful of somebody’s gift, whether it’s of service or borrowing something or a compliment.

Just saying you’re welcome.

I guess it’s what I was raised with, which makes sense because I was raised in the 60s and 70s.

I find that fascinating that y’all get so many calls on this.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

You’re not alone.

And anytime it comes up anywhere linguistically on the Internet, there are long, long comment threads on it.

And a lot of them are people who are aggravated.

But there is a clear age split on this.

The younger set doesn’t see the problem with saying no problem or something else, something other than you’re welcome.

And I think they’ve got a good case.

In my mind, you’re welcome kind of gets a pass.

I’m kind of siding with the people who are much younger than me.

I think you’re welcome.

Its days are numbered, and I’m just fine with that.

Wow.

I bet we’re going to hear from a lot of folks on this, Kay.

You may have stirred up a hornet’s nest.

Thank you for joining us today.

Oh, it’s my pleasure.

You’re welcome.

I was going to say.

See, it’s hard now, right?

Thank you, Kay.

It was fun, y’all.

I appreciate it.

Bye-bye.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Oh, that’s great.

That’s perfect.

Isn’t it?

Yeah, it’s a really good topic, and we barely got into it, right?

For those of us who had that drilled into us, you’re welcome.

You’re welcome.

And that’s kind of what I wanted to zero in on is when we have anger about linguistic things, it’s often because the language is changing opposite to the way that we were taught.

And that anger perhaps is a valid initial response, but you do kind of need to move along and figure out why you’re getting angry about it and what to do about it other than be angry.

Yeah, and just notice how cool that is, that it’s shifting right under your feet.

There’s something cool about being able to observe that.

And I bet many of our listeners are going to want to weigh in on that.

877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org.