Thank you very much for that

Expressing gratitude is apparently not just good for those receiving it, but also for those giving it, if an entire industry of gratefulness journals is anything to go by. English has numerous ways of saying thank you. Why so many?

Gratitude can be offered in English by simply saying thanks. Then there is the informal ta,

dating back to children in the 1700s. There is also

cheers, which transitioned ‘‘from the pub to the sober world’’ as a marker of thanks, according to a 1976 Times article. And, of course, there are others: much obliged, I appreciate it, (you’re a) legend, I’m eternally grateful, I owe you one, what would I do without you and many variations on

thanks (thanks a million / a bunch / very much).

Older versions of English show that such variation is by no means new. In 2018, Jonathan Culpeper and his colleagues scoured dialogue in Shakespeare’s plays in search of all the different expressions that Middle English speakers used to show gratitude. While thanks sometimes sufficed, at other times the language was infused with lavish magnanimity: I take my leave with many thousand thanks or I thank your pretty sweet wit for it (examples from Henry IV).

Yet the variation was not arbitrary. The researchers found a direct relationship between the importance of the gift or magnitude of the act received and the (linguistic) effort invested in expressing gratitude. Shakespearean dialogue shows that perhaps creativity is not just symbolic but also entertaining.

Moreover, the reciprocal act of recompensing the value of the gift by a linguistic form mirroring it appeared mitigated by the status of the thanker. When the thanker had higher status than the receiver of gratitude, the speaker invested less effort in offering their thanks. So, power is at play.

What about in Aotearoa New Zealand? Analyses of NZ English recordings and writing from the 1990s suggest little variation in expressions of gratitude beyond thanks and thank you. The only real variant seems to be the addition of the term

mate: thanks mate.

In contrast, British English speakers from a similar era expressed gratitude more often than Kiwis and displayed more differences in the patterns used (thanks, thanks very much, thanks so much). They also favoured the more formal thank you very much. Our preference for informality could be explained by egalitarian aspirations. We value equality.

However, it would be interesting to collect recent data from NZ English to check if patterns have changed. One innovation is the use of the Mā ori phrase kia ora, but its prevalence (in its use meaning ‘thanks’) remains unknown. Another is the slang form chur.

Moreover, not all uses of thanks expressed gratitude. Analysing Twitter posts, we found that two seemingly synonymous hashtags, #thanksforthat and #thankyouforthat, had very different uses. While the longer #thankyouforthat

hashtag expressed genuine gratitude, the shorter,

#thanksforthat, was typically used sarcastically to express the opposite.

Here is one example: ‘‘Just before our *courthouse wedding* the judge told us, ‘‘You’re the first person I’ve married that I haven’t also sent to jail.’’ #thanksforthat’’. Again, patterns of use are not arbitrary.

The desire for creativity and innovation manifests itself even in the most basic human communication: offering gratitude – a discourse function we learn early and use so often thereafter. And that’s definitely something to be thankful for: #kiaora4that!