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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
...you're welcome, as a response to thank you? An acquaintance asked that over dinner last night. I have a vague memory that we discussed this here a long time ago, but I wasn't about to try and do a Search on either of those words!
The only "explanation" I found for it was that it was first noted to be used this way in 1907 (which for some reason seems awfully late to me).
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027 |
The OED also dates the use to 1907. From my limited experience in various languages it seems that the formula of response to thanks (like that for closing a letter) is generally subject to changing fashions.
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Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
Welcome started as a greeting upon the hearer's arrival (cf. the more archaic well met). (I've often wondered if thank you is in the imperative or the first person singular with optional subject deletion. I'd like to think the latter.) How this term went from being a salutation only to an expression of reciprocal thankfulness is just one of those mysteries with which language is filled.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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