Are we not welcome?

[drwex]

When I was growing up, I was taught please, and thank you, and you're welcome. I even learned the ASL for those, as part of trying to give our kids more communication channels. Over time, and I think particularly in the last decade, our language has shifted and now you almost never hear people say, "You're welcome" anymore.

Instead, we respond to "thank you" with "thank you". This is interesting to me because I think it reflects on a presumed response to power dynamics. If you thank me, and I say "you're welcome" I'm apparently evincing a kind of superiority. You should be thankful, it seems to say, and I am generously giving what you have received and been thankful for.

That's very different from how I learned it as a child. "You're welcome" was originally taught to me as a way to acknowledge the values of sharing and gifting. By giving things, or time, or favors to others, we were affirming the others' value as a person. The same logic that, today, encourages us not to avert our eyes from, say, people begging on the streets, or people suffering homelessness sleeping under bridges was the logic I learned as a child. When I failed to say "you're welcome" or if I said something self-deprecating like "oh, it was nothing" it was somewhere between false modesty and a denial of the importance of the other person.

There are, however, other values to the responsive thank you. For example, it helps us call out more equal exchanges. If you come to my party I might say "Thanks for coming" and then you might respond "Thanks for hosting." We acknowledge that we've each done something valuable and appreciate it. Reading over more writing prompts (yes, I'm doing more of that) I've been reading about peoples' gratitude projects. It seems like those that have more impact are those that ask people to be more specific about their gratitude. I'm not just grateful for the people in my life, I'm grateful for the people who take the time to respond to my posts; I'm grateful (thankful) for the people who trust that I have good intentions even when I have bad words. If people thank me for this, I want to thank them in return because I feel an equality of interchange.

Where do you guys fall on this spectrum? Were you taught the way I was? Have you changed your language (deliberately)?

Comments

[conuly]

I don't hear dual thank yous except in retail environments, where it isn't quite clear who is supposed to be thanking whom in the first place. I have heard an uptick in "no problem" and the like - peevologists hate this, but they forget that "you're welcome" displaced "my pleasure" within the past 150 years and was equally scorned at first.

[flexagon]

I also hear a lot of "no problem" these days, and I like the specific reciprocal "thank you". But I also like saying "you're welcome", when it's actually true that the person is welcome to my time/energy/resources. I mostly only say "you're welcome" in this way to people I love.

[elusiveat]

I was trained to use please, thank you, and you're welcome as well. I don't think I've noticed "you're welcome" disappearing, although I have heard the "thank you / thank you" thing.

The idea of "you're welcome" having developed connotations of inequality hadn't occurred to me, and I'm not sure if it makes sense to me or not.

The one that intrigues me is the disappearance of "please". I have the feeling that a certain subset of the population has started avoiding that one because when used in text communications it can sound sarcastic.
Reminds me a little of the anecdote of the southern boy in a northern school, who gets sent to the principal's office for repeatedly saying "yes ma'am" and "no ma'am" to the teacher.

I do like "thank you / thank you", and I also like "thank you / you're welcome". There is also "thank you / you are *very* welcome", which is sort of like a "thank you / thank you", I think.

In any case, thank you DrWex, for a fun and thought-provoking piece : )

[reedrover]

I was raised with please, thank you, you're welcome as well. And yes, I have deliberately changed my language to NOT include "no problem." I find "no problem" to be harsh and distancing in comparison to "you're welcome." "You're welcome" is a gift of my time. To me, "no problem" means you weren't enough of a bother to notice.

[fenicedautun]

I see the thank you / thank you thing a lot at work, especially at the end of meeting, which I interpret as everybody thanking everybody else for the gift of their time.

[gale_storm]

I was trained to say 'please,' 'thank you,' and 'you're welcome,' but my observation on whether these words are used can be attributed to my moving to the Scandinavian part of the world, thereby bringing me into spots in which such words are needed to have vanished forthwith. This was followed by my being whacked in the head by MS, so I'm in fewer and fewer situations in which they're used. Oh, of course there are words to be used as some sort of social lubrication, and they vary by context, it seems.

[jducoeur]

I use "no problem" pretty often -- that's not a conscious shift, but empirically I note that I do it more often than "you're welcome" these days.

I do pretty consciously use "happy to help" quite often, underscoring that I *am* happy to assist in this particular context, with a subtext that asking more of the sort would be welcome. Conceptually similar to "you're welcome", but with more intentionality instead of the rote phrase.