A rchive Date
[ 26-09-2002 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Mass Media ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/brady.html
Some phrase changes are, like, OK, ya know
By BILL BRADY -- For the London Free Press
September 26, 2002
I need to know what happened to, "You're welcome." It has gone from our lexicon, along with many other words and phrases of another era.
Try this experiment. Listen to the response when you thank someone. I guarantee if the recipient of your thanks is younger than 25, you will not hear, "You're welcome," for, clearly, that timely phrase has been replaced among the young with, "No problem." A variation is the stunning, "Not a problem." Just last week I was given, "No problem, dude."
I do not suggest this is an impolite reaction to the phrase, "Thank you." In the main today's young people are polite and really mean it when they say, "No problem." But I need to know what they mean.
Here's what I want it to mean. The young man held the door open and, as I passed, I thanked him. His response really meant, "I did not experience a problem when I held the door open" or, perhaps, he was really saying: "I found the act of kindness I just performed to have given me no difficulties at all."
In another time, our parents spoke their own tongue, which my generation then moved away from.
Thank you was often interchangeable with "Much obliged" and a worthy response was often, "You're most welcome, I'm sure." Now we almost never hear in reply to a thank you, "Don't mention it, my pleasure or its nothing."
So, while "You're welcome" seems to now be passe, it has joined many other words gone from contemporary speech. One is no longer annoyed or, as mom used to say, "Vexed," which is in common usage on most of the Caribbean islands. Today, an irritated person is ticked off or just plain ticked. I'll bet that is popular at the Timex factory.
My mother had her own way of showing disapproval. I'd hear "Tsk, tsk, tsk," while listening to her side of a telephone conversation. Generally there was a series of "tsks" followed by these timeless phrases, "You don't say," "Mercy me, you poor soul," or "Goodness." They're all gone now, replaced by, "You've gotta be kidding." Still, that's more genteel than my dad's exclamation when surprised: "Well, I'll kiss a pig!" I don't think he ever did.
Just when I thought the Victorian era phrase, "Surely, you jest," was only a reminder of the past, I actually heard it uttered by a very young woman at a mall, of all places. It's so much more delicate than, "You gotta be kidding."
I am not preoccupied with the past because, for the most part, we have progressed. (Well, maybe not with night-time television. As a case in point, see CTV Tuesdays at 10 p.m.)
I miss the subtleties of the language, although some of the contemporary language in use has a certain style about it. I like, "You wish" as a good reply to, "Are you going to pick up the cheque?" The minute phrase, "As if," works well in this instance too. "Gimme a break" is popular now, but I'm not sure what it means. In union-company talks, it may be a negotiating point about rest periods.
Some things, though, do not change. The word "basically" is as popular as ever and most often is irrelevantly used as it was by our antecedents. It has become a sort of punctuation in a sentence along with today's dreaded, all-pervasive expression, "Ya know." I wish I could tell you these verbal potholes in the road of language will soon disappear, but they will not. "Ya know" has moved on to the next generation and many adults now sprinkle it generously into every conversation.
Of course, inculcated in every young person's patter of speech is the annoying word, "like" which has taken on a life of its own.
It's like, too much.
Bill Brady is secretary of the Blackburn Group Inc. His column appears Thursdays.
Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@lfpress.com.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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