In November 2011, there was a flurry of newspaper articles
about the ‘death of thank you’ following a research poll. This discovered that 70%
of people say thank you when they don’t mean it and that there is an increased
popularity of different forms of gratitude like ‘ta’, ‘cool’ and even the
French ‘merci’. Also, one third of people felt it was easier to send a thank
you card, but humorously, 45% confess that usually it takes more than 6 months
before they send one.
Much more recently, a Guardian article was released on the
17th of July which also explored these changes after a more current survey.
Apparently, the reason for this decline is that the ‘dated’ phrase thank you is
now considered too formal- even in the work place. It is now as common for colleges
to send a ‘x’ at the end of their correspondence than to say ‘regards’.
Both experiments show how Brits are changing. But this does
not end at ‘thank you’ – the whole English language is completely reforming to
suit the modern environment and technology. There are many theories of how these
changes with develop further. But, it is likely that these changes will
continue.
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