I'm Minyon Fogarty and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the English language.

We talk about writing, history, rules, and cool stuff.

Today in honor of Thanksgiving, I have a segment about the origin of giving thanks and then

an analysis of the word Thanksgiving itself.

As we head into America's annual Thanksgiving holiday, a day set aside for being thankful,

it seems reasonable to wonder how the idea of thinking and its requisite polite form of

thank you evolved.

It turns out the type of politeness and gratitude that plays such an important role in modern

society didn't emerge until individualism and free will became prominent parts of our

cultural psyche.

Thinking, a verb that's been around since Old English, tells us that expressing gratitude

has long been part of English society.

What has changed more drastically over time though is who we think and why.

In texts from Old English that spans the fifth to the twelfth centuries, we find a noun

form, thunk, and a verb form, thunkian, that both carried the meaning of giving thanks.

In addition the noun thunk could also mean thought.

Since the word came from a root in proto-European, our ancestral language, that meant think or

feel.

Good feelings or thoughts toward someone were interpreted as gratitude, which is how the

meaning of thanks seems to have evolved.

However, in its earliest usage, thinking wasn't routine like it is today.

In fact, because early English culture was based on the very strong dramatic values of

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