Saying Thank you this Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a very special time of year in which we stop to give thanks for all of the people and things which give our lives meaning and joy throughout the year. Whether it’s your health or your cherished loved ones, or even a big change in your life that you’re grateful for you’re likely to employ that very common word “thanks”. While you’re likely to say thank you more than once in any given day most people do not have any idea of the history of this concept and the words we associate with it.

The history of “Thank You”

Like most of the words that we use today the phrase “Thank You” has much longer roots than we realize, and has its base in an older word with a different meaning. The word thanks is actually a derivative of the same word “thank” from Old English in c.450 –c.1100 when this would meant “a thought”. This word then evolved, as so many words do through usage, becoming “a favourable thought or feeling, goodwill”, and by the Middle Ages meant “a kindly thought or feeling entertained towards any one for favor or services received” by the Middle Ages, which is quite similar to the meaning it has in today’s modern vocabulary.  

How to express gratitude

The English language is a large and varied one in which there are many different ways to express varying levels of gratitude and indebtedness with different levels of formality. For example, the word “cheers” is a largely British English word which was originally found in pubs (bars), but has now evolved to become a colloquial way of saying thank you which has nothing to do with drinking at all. There may also be circumstances in which you wish to express a sense of debt as well as general gratitude, and in such cases phrases like “much obliged” and “I owe you one” are the formal and colloquial, respectively, terms which you might consider using.

Thanks

There may be literally hundreds of ways in which you can express gratitude these days, but “thank you” is still the perennial, gold standard example in the English language. This phrase can be traced back to the fourteenth century, and is yet to fall out of use. No matter how you decide to say thank you, however, it is key to acknowledge the importance of this tradition, and remember that it has a part to play in every single day of the year.

This Thanksgiving, why not share the story of how Thank You came to be a staple of our society and culture.