How To Respond To "Thank You!"

[Canary42]

While casually surfing the net (as you do on a wet Sunday afternoon!), I came across an “English with Lucy” series which ostensibly is teaching English as a second language to foreigners, but disguises an advert for video books. Nevertheless I thought that this one struck a chord for Answerbank – we occasionally get complaints about folk not thanking Answerers, but when Askers do say Thank You we sometimes get responses to that post. It is this latter which is appropriate here.

Yes, I know it's trivia, but this is Chatterbank :-D



The clip is nearly 9 minutes long (but quite amusing IMHO) so in case you don’t want to last the course, I give below Lucy’s 16 responses to “Thank You” – she rather over-milks it, but her examples/reasons are quite twee/comical in places.

Informal

1. You’re welcome
2. No problem
3. Thank you
4. The pleasure is mine
5. I know you’d do the same for me
6. That’s alright
7. No worries
8. Don’t mention it
9. It was the least I could do
10. Anytime
11. Sure
12. It was nothing

More Formal

1 Much obliged
2 You’re most welcome
3 We appreciate your business/custom
4 I’m happy to help

[barry1010]

I thank you :D

*courtesy of Arthur Askey

[davebro]

Say nowt - it's like the "after you", "no, after you!" scenario - could go on forever!

[douglas9401]

Nae bother.

[AuntPG]

I think 'You're Welcome' is much better than 'No Problem/Worries'. The latter makes no sense.

[andy-hughes]

barry - // I thank you :D //

When extended through regular use, that morphs into "Eyeeee theeeenk yaaaaaouuuuuuu!!!!"

and eventually, after years of usage, it becomes unintelligable -

"Eyanyaoowwwww!!!!!"

[Barsel]

More recently. I find a lot of people saying, 'No probs' or 'Not a prob'
Mostly young people I suppose.

[andy-hughes]

AuntPG - // I think 'You're Welcome' is much better than 'No Problem/Worries'. The latter makes no sense. //

For 'No Worries' creeping into our daily speech, we can thank the influence of 'Neighbours' on our student population, since it is Australian idiom.

That, and the moronic interogative, where a statement has the vocal uplift at the end that implies it is a question, when it's not -

"I'm going to Uni this month?" and so on.

[AuntPG]

Andi, that was all the rage -the inflexion(?) -when my kids were teenagers, it drove me nuts. I think they called it the west coast (USA) inflexion or something. Thankfully I've not heard young people doing that for a long time.