Gamer girl here, I'm in Yonfoguri and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the

English language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff. Today we'll

talk about what happened to saying you're welcome after someone says thank you, and about

whether it's okay to use the word who's for inanimate objects. From our automatic thank you,

as we grab our karmalate at Starbucks to the genuine thank you when a stranger lets your two items

go ahead of their full basket in the grocery line, thank you is bandied about a lot in daily life.

But what seems to be waning is the well-worn, you're welcome. Instead, what we hear are things

ranging from no problem to you bet to sure. But whatever happened to that old stand-by, you're

welcome, and why do we need so many other ways to respond to thanks. Although it may seem like

we've been saying you're welcome forever, this expression is actually surprisingly recent.

In old English, Wilkuma meant pleasing guest, and it was used to express goodwill toward a visitor.

It wasn't used as a courteous invitation to do something into the late Middle Ages, as in you

are welcome to join us. Even once we get to Shakespeare's time, known as the early modern period,

a study looking at the way thanking was expressed and responded to in written materials,

including personal letters, turned up only two examples of you are welcome. As we get to the 20th

century, responding to thanks overall becomes more common, and your welcome had morphed into the

conventional response, no longer carrying its original meaning. As well as not being all that old,

your welcome is also not all that common outside of American English. Several studies that looked

at the most frequent modern ways of expressing thanks or gratitude, found that saying your welcome

is much less common in other English varieties, particularly those spoken in Britain where

nodding your head is popular instead. Another surprise is that responding verbally in any form

is not a particularly prevalent habit among British or American English speakers,

...