Why Today's 'Thank You' Is Different from an Ancient 'Thank You.' Gerunds.
Grammar Girl: For Writers and Language Lovers.
Mignon Fogarty, Inc.
4.5 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 18 November 2022
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
902. Language reflects culture, so it's no surprise that giving thanks hundreds of years ago was different from giving thanks today. We have the fascinating history. Plus, since "Thanksgiving" is a gerund, we looked at all the interesting things you can do with gerunds in general.
| Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/thank-you-history/transcript
The Thanksgiving history segment was written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of the forthcoming book, "Like, Literally Dude," about all the speech habits we love to hate. You can find her at valeriefridland.com or on Twitter at @FridlandValerie.
The gerund segment was written by Neal Whitman, an independent writer and consultant specializing in language and grammar and a member of the Reynoldsburg, Ohio, school board. You can find him on Facebook, on Twitter as @literalminded, and on his blog at literalminded.wordpress.com.
| Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates.
| Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing courses.
| HOST: Mignon Fogarty
| VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) or https://sayhi.chat/grammargirl
| Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.
- Audio engineer: Nathan Semes
- Editor: Adam Cecil
- Advertising Operations Specialist: Morgan Christianson
- Marketing and Publicity Assistant: Davina Tomlin
- Digital Operations Specialist: Holly Hutchings
- Intern: Kamryn Lacy
| Theme music by Catherine Rannus.
| Grammar Girl Social Media Links: YouTube. TikTok. Twitter. Facebook. Instagram. LinkedIn. Mastodon.
References for the Thanksgiving history segment:
Culpeper, Jonathan and Demmen, Jane. 2011. Nineteenth-century English politeness: Negative politeness, conventional indirect requests and the rise of the individual self. Journal of Historical Pragmatics, 12 (1/2). pp. 49-81.
Jacobsson, M. 2002. Thank you and thanks in Early Modern English. ICAME Journal 26: 63-80.
Taavitsainen, Irma, Jucker, Andreas H. 2010. Expressive speech acts and politeness in eighteenth century English. In: Hickey, R. (Ed.), Eighteenth Century English: Ideology and Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 159-181.
"thank, n.". OED Online. September 2022. Oxford University Press.
"welcome, n.1, adj., and int." OED Online. September 2022. Oxford University Press
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I'm Minyon Fogarty and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the English language. |
| 0:12.0 | We talk about writing, history, rules, and cool stuff. |
| 0:16.0 | Today in honor of Thanksgiving, I have a segment about the origin of giving thanks and then |
| 0:21.4 | an analysis of the word Thanksgiving itself. |
| 0:28.8 | As we head into America's annual Thanksgiving holiday, a day set aside for being thankful, |
| 0:35.1 | it seems reasonable to wonder how the idea of thinking and its requisite polite form of |
| 0:41.4 | thank you evolved. |
| 0:43.8 | It turns out the type of politeness and gratitude that plays such an important role in modern |
| 0:48.9 | society didn't emerge until individualism and free will became prominent parts of our |
| 0:55.6 | cultural psyche. |
| 0:57.8 | Thinking, a verb that's been around since Old English, tells us that expressing gratitude |
| 1:03.6 | has long been part of English society. |
| 1:07.3 | What has changed more drastically over time though is who we think and why. |
| 1:13.2 | In texts from Old English that spans the fifth to the twelfth centuries, we find a noun |
| 1:18.8 | form, thunk, and a verb form, thunkian, that both carried the meaning of giving thanks. |
| 1:26.9 | In addition the noun thunk could also mean thought. |
| 1:30.2 | Since the word came from a root in proto-European, our ancestral language, that meant think or |
| 1:36.3 | feel. |
| 1:37.8 | Good feelings or thoughts toward someone were interpreted as gratitude, which is how the |
| 1:42.7 | meaning of thanks seems to have evolved. |
| 1:46.0 | However, in its earliest usage, thinking wasn't routine like it is today. |
| 1:52.1 | In fact, because early English culture was based on the very strong dramatic values of |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Mignon Fogarty, Inc., and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Mignon Fogarty, Inc. and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.