BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?

Subject: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Noreen
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 03:20 PM

Another poster averred on the Sloe Gin thread that "They don't really say 'you're welcome' in the UK".

I beg to differ, although I accept that it is probably mainly those of an age with myself and my family who still do maintain this form of politeness.

..and there are more in the UK younger than there are older than me as I am less than two weeks away from my 50th birthday...

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Big Mick
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 03:25 PM

This isn't just a UK thing. I have heard folks make the same observation here in the States. I am not willing to throw good manners under the bus in the name of "times are different now". Poor manners are poor manners.

Just my 2 dollar bill's worth,

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 03:25 PM

My English partner is 57, and he teases me whenever I say it because he perceives it as an Americanism.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Big Mick
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 03:27 PM

Am I getting this wrong? Are you saying that Brits don't thank someone for a kindness? Or are you referring to the contraction form of "You are welcome" to "You're welcome"?

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 03:43 PM

Mick, I believe that the Brits don't customarily use that particular phrase reflexively, the way we do in the States. Even those folks who are generally "polite."

Thre are other responses to "thank you" used more commonly than "you're welcome" in other English-speaking cultures, i.e., "no worries," and apparently (as I was informed in that other thread) "cheers" as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Becca72
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 03:47 PM

In my professional life I say "you're welcome" or "you're quite welcome" but in my personal life I tend to use "no problem" or "you bet" or some other such informal term.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 03:54 PM

In my experience (American in the UK) I have found that thank you is said but not you are welcome. I sometimes niggle my English husband by saying "thank you" over and over until I get a response. I just want to know he heard me. Usually get a "no problem" from him.

But out in the wider world work, social etc. it is the same. Either no response or "no problem."   Though this may be regional.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 03:55 PM

I think, Mick, what we don't tend to have is a standard phrase to thank someone for thanking us, if you know what I mean. So if someone thanks me for something, I'm more likely to say "that's okay" or "don't mention it" than "you're welcome".

Not all the time, but a lot of the time when I've heard it said in the States on my visits, it's sounded like more of a reflex than something that's said with any sincerity. 'Specially in shops. Still, there's nothing wrong with social graces and niceties...

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Will Fly
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 04:04 PM

I confess, I confess - I sometimes say "No worries". Thereby revealing myself, weirdly, as a closet and unconscious Australian. (I'm assuming "No worries" originated in Australia?). Must have been watching Crocodile Dundee one too many times...

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Noreen
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 04:04 PM

"No worries" only started to be heard in this country with the advent of Australian soaps, and to me it still sounds incongruous, as does "no problem"- (well, I never expected it would be a problem!)

'Cheers' is more informal and acceptable, but 'you're welcome' as a response to 'thank you' still feels best to me.

I believe that the Brits don't customarily use that particular phrase reflexively, the way we do in the States. Even those folks who are generally "polite." ... I do, as do many of a similar age and older.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Will Fly
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 04:06 PM

Noreen - I must be really sad. I sometimes say "no worries:, and I'm getting on for 65!

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 04:16 PM

Here, "yup" means "You're welcome," or sometimes yep, yepp-ER, etc. Always used.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 04:18 PM

I use "You're welcome" "No problem" "It's nothing" "De nada" "No sweat" and several others. Which I use depends upon whom I talking to.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: s&r
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 04:19 PM

I work in a number of schools in Lancashire. I'm usually laden with guiars, music bags and such. I find it quite remarkable and very pleasing, how many children (5-16) open doors and hold them open, and respond when I thank them with 'You're Welcome'.

If it's an American import - great, I love it.

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: maeve
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 04:19 PM

Noreen, my husband and I live in Maine. We do respond with "You're welcome" when we are thanked. We don't have any problem with other friendly, appropriate responses such as some of those mentioned upthread. We are mildly taken aback when such a courteous exchange is replaced by a fevered:

"Thank you"
"No, thank YOU"
"Well thank YOU"
"No really, thank YOU!"   

maeve

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: peregrina
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 04:23 PM

quite a long time ago there was a children's slang expression 'welks'

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 04:30 PM

maeve, some of my friends and i have had that same exchange before, but we are really camping it up and laughing at ourselves..it's just done in fun.

I have a relative who used to teasing say "It's my job" when thanked. IT was kind of fun.

My grandson is expected to say thank you and you are welcome. He had a little trouble understanding the latter when he was younger, but at five now he understands.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Amos
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 04:33 PM

"You bet!" "Sure thing!" "Right-o!" "OK!" "Pas de quoi" "De rien" "Glad to" and "Absolutely!" are all perfectly workable rejoinders to thanks. SO are "All right!", "Nothing of it", and probably half-a-dozen other ordinary phrases, without even getting in to "You're welcome".

'sa big fockin' deal??

A

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: heric
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 04:37 PM

I've heard Canadians complain (mildly) about Americans saying "uh-huh" instead of "You're welcome."

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 04:38 PM

*smile* Hi, Noreen...

I almost never hear Americans say "you're welcome" anymore....especially on news program interviews. The standard reply to "thank you" is just......"thank you". I have commented on it for several years.
I'm always surprised when anyone says it the 'old-fashioned way'.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 04:40 PM

In "U" circles in the UK one should say "Not at all", much as one NEVER replies to "How do you do" with ANYTHING other than "How do you do"

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 04:48 PM

This reminds me of a time when I was holding forth idly (as you do) about how some languages have an automatic response to 'thankyou' and some don't - in Italian, for instance, 'Grazie' is always met with 'Prego', and I think German is pretty similar with 'Danke schön' and 'Bitte schön'. English, I opined, isn't like that. Some of the people I was holding forth to were American, & they said that, on the contrary, English is like that - someone says 'Thankyou', you say 'You're welcome', no ifs and buts. I can only say that it's never been like that (to my knowledge) in British English; as Spleen said, you can reply to 'Thankyou' with 'not at all' or 'no problem' or 'cheers' or 'don't mention it' or 'it was nothing' or quite a number of other phrases.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 04:53 PM

I've also replied, "Happy to have been of help."

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 04:53 PM

Well, 'You're welcome' is still alive and well in this house.

John 'XG'

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: GUEST,Jack The Sailor
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 05:14 PM

Many, many black folks in the south say "mmmm hmmm" instead of "You are Welcome". Sometimes it feels like, "Of course I am holding the door for you. No need to thank me."

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Will Fly
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 05:20 PM

Richard Bridge:
In "U" circles in the UK one should say "Not at all", much as one NEVER replies to "How do you do" with ANYTHING other than "How do you do"

I haven't heard the expression "U" (and, by implication, "non-U") for years. Are they still used as class-defined-by-language terms? ("lavatory" - not "toilet"; "napkin" - not "serviette", etc.)

Alan Ross and Nancy Mitford had a lot to answer for... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Alice
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 05:22 PM

About ten years ago, I noticed a lot of people started responding with "my pleasure" and you even hear that on tv interviews now, instead of "you're welcome".
Thank you, Mr. Big Expert for being on the show. My pleasure, Mr. Interviewer.
When this really is obvious, is the when the subject is tragic. The automatic "My Pleasure" comes across as, Oh, Really? You were pleased to talk about this disaster?

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 05:24 PM

I think I usually say 'my pleasure' but I'm not sure.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: heric
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 05:30 PM

You just reminded me: If it's a cursory "thanks" for holding the door I say "Sure." If it's a more expansive Thank You, I say something more "U" on a graduated scale.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 05:35 PM

If someone says "How do you do?" the thing you mustn't do is assume they want to know, and tell them about your troubles. On the other hand if they say "How are you?" it's OK to reply ""Fine, thank you" - even if that's not strictly true.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 05:47 PM

Will, yes.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 05:53 PM

Yes, we British are a funny lot.

"Hello there, how are you!" actually means, "Oh Gawd, there's Ruby Knickerbocker, and she's going to want to tell me her whole life story!" So, by asking her how she is, you're actually telling her that you don't really want to know at all. It took me a long time to suss this one out, because I used to think people really wanted to know, so, I'd tell them.

BIG MISTAKE! :0)

I think it was my Spanish blood that made me stop and chatter, then want them to tell me how they were, or maybe I was just being 'Nice but Dim'....again. ;0)


Once you've cracked the code, which is that the British often say the opposite of what they mean, (sadly) it's all plain sailing.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Rowan
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 05:54 PM

I'm all for politeness; don't get me wrong. And my experience of US residents is that they are verbally much more overtly polite than residents of other places I've been.

Pip Radish's post rang true for me, where the antiphon-response nature of thanking was described. But so many of the exchanges we routinely use seem to become automatic and without any intrinsic feeling. When I receive a service (someone holding a door open for me or serving me in a shop) I always say "Thank you" and mean it. In Oz my offering would be responded to, usually, with "No worries." If I were the one providing the service and receiving the "Thank you" my responses would vary between "No worries", "No River Murrays", "My pleasure" and "It's my pleasure" depending on the perceived formality of the situation and my attitude towards that formality

US shop assistants and their Oz counterparts who'd received US-style training routinely would respond to my "Thank you" with "You're welcome" and I've come to regard this as yet another example of US cultural hegemony, so I'll occasionally stir the Oz ones with a smiling reference to their having been really well trained in the US; it's an excellent conversational ambit.

But then, I've also stirred passers-by, amiably, out of their automatic "How are you going?" greeting with my frequent response of "Gently."

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 06:43 PM

When I came to Alaska 20 years ago I sold my car, figuring that if I'm going to live in a town I would use buses, taxis and friends. Which I have done, and do.

So I'm on buses a lot, and one of the niceties about bus travel that bemuses me is that most of us - passengers - thank the driver upon disembarking. Why is that, do you suppose? The driver is being paid to do it and we have not put him or her out in any way. But somehow it just feels right- and the drivers always respond, You're welcome. Have a good day.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 07:18 PM

Saying "Yhank you" as you get off the bus is normal practice here. But the drivers don't say "You're Welcome", that would feel a bit peculiar. They might give a nod of acknowledgement, but I don't know, because I'm not generally looking in their direction when I get off the bus.

At supermarket checkouts there can any number of "Thank You"s going back and forth. Hand them a storecard, "Thank You", pay the money "Thank You", get your change, "Thank You", get the receipt"Thank You", get the storecard back "Thank You", get offered a bag, "Thank You", if they pack it, "Thank You" and a final mutual "Thanks" as you part.    But no "You're welcome".

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Joybell
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 07:43 PM

As an answer to me -- I prefer "You're welcome" to "It was no trouble". I feel special when something was a bit difficult, or just boring and not fun, but it was done anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 07:47 PM

If you leave by the back door of a bus, does the driver feel slighted?

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Dec 08 - 11:54 PM

Not if the sign says, Please exit by rear door. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 05 Dec 08 - 01:41 PM

"...much as one NEVER replies to "How do you do" with ANYTHING other than "How do you do"

Reminds me of something I've learned in regard to the peculiarly New Olreanian expression "Where Y'at?" (meaning "where are you at," a variant form of "how are you doing.")

This locution has long been so common among, and characteristic of, a certain community of lower-class/working-class white Orleanians that the term "Yat" has come to mean a person easily identified as a member of that cultural group.

At any rate, a friend who is a born-and-raised Orleanian (an uptown type and doctor's son, by the way ~ not a Yat himself) once asked me if I knew the proper response to "Where Y'at?"

I wasn't sure, so he told me: the only proper reponse to the question "Where Y'at?" is . . . "Where Y'at?"!!

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Rog Peek
Date: 05 Dec 08 - 02:01 PM

Very common usage in Ireland, particularly if you are being served in a shop, bar or restaurant.

Rog

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: semi-submersible
Date: 05 Dec 08 - 02:49 PM

Here on Canada's west coast, "You're welcome" is usually automatic, though variations are seen. I don't think I'd notice particularly if the verbal response were missing; a smile and momentary meeting of eyes would feel to me equivalent to "You're welcome."

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: gnu
Date: 05 Dec 08 - 03:03 PM

Ya knooooww.... my old man taught me at an early age... "Yes, sir."

Three letters, easy to say, no need not to be polite. And, he meant all of them. Yes Maam... thank you... you're welcome...

What has absolutely gobsmacked me is that some people detect this as subservience on the behalf of the speaker... or as belittling, and, even as dispectful to the receiver, as in, "Don't call me "sir". My father was a "sir"." Odd.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 05 Dec 08 - 03:11 PM

Many, many black folks in the south say "mmmm hmmm" instead of "You are Welcome".

Not only black folks and not only in south. I used to say that too, sugah. Wonder why I stopped? I think it happened in my 30s when I went to uni.

I was in the Southest US this past summer, it was wonderful feeling simply talking to fellow shoppers and shop assistants in the same accent. That welcoming friendliness of being home perhaps. I don't get same in like environment in UK. I get shoppers knocking me aside, trodding on my feet and running into my shins with push chairs and snarly unhelpful shop assistants.

Sigh.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Dec 08 - 03:34 PM

Of course, I do... My mamma brought me up right an'...

...thank you for askin'...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 05 Dec 08 - 04:28 PM

I'm horribly polite wherever I go. I was raised that way. And I always say 'You're welcome'.

But then I also always say 'you're excused' when someone says 'excuse me'.. ;-) A bit naughty I know.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Dec 08 - 05:11 PM

Yes you never get anybody that says - well actually you're not really welcome, because frankly I don't like you very much. However I made an existential decision..... I'll be nice to this bastard, just this one time, mind you.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: gnu
Date: 06 Dec 08 - 05:17 AM

In response to "excuse me", I respond "certainly", when it is for, say, passing by. When it is for, say, passing wind, I am sometimes tempted to respond, "I'll reserve judgement on that."

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 Dec 08 - 05:25 AM

I think there are several US greetings/responses that we could use very well over here in the UK. Is it in "Twins" that someone says to Danny DeVito, "How's it hanging?", and he replies, "Round my ankles."

Might try that with Adrian, my local newsagent shop owner, when I collect the paper this morning.

I'll report back.

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Dec 08 - 09:11 AM

I vary from 'Your Welcome' to 'No worries', 'Nay probs' and 'My pleasure'. My favourite (Lancy) reply is 'twur nowt'.

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: Do you say 'You're welcome'?
From: GUEST,Howard Jones
Date: 06 Dec 08 - 10:11 AM

I think "you're welcome" came into British English from America, rather like "have a nice day!" I don't recall hearing it much when I was younger. But it's not the automatic reflex response to being thanked, as it seems to be in America. As McGrath pointed out, the proper British (or at least English) response is to get into a perpetual loop of "thank yous" until one party makes a break for freedom.

In a similar way, the proper English response when someone steps on your foot is for you to apologise to them.