As a non-American, this was one of the biggest culture shocks I faced. On the surface, relationships in the US seem very transactional (not making the judgment that they are really transactional). For example, in the US a son would thank his parents for paying his college tuition. In my culture, this would be insulting because it would suggest being distant from family, in the sense that the son ought to believe his parents wealth is his also, and later willingly contribute his earnings when his parents need anything. It is a difference in the degree to which individualism is the norm.
Reminds of the book "Debt" by David Graeber. He talks about how many cultures have systems where everyone is indebted to their family and community, and this debt is never to be settled. To want to settle a debt (or to even calculate it) would indicate that a relationship has ended. So it is a huge culture shock to see the degree to which calculation plays a part in US relationships (like Sheryl Sandberg precisely splitting domestic chores with her husband 50:50).
I have a feeling that the non-American system is better because it fosters closer family ties, but that might just be because that's the system I'm familiar with.
>> In my culture, this would be insulting because it would suggest being distant from family, in the sense that the son ought to believe his parents wealth is his also, and later willingly contribute his earnings when his parents need anything. It is a difference in the degree to which individualism is the norm.
This is very interesting, and brings to mind something I've been struggling with recently (I'm USA-ian by the way). As a father I want to instill in my children a sense of self reliance, a sense that they can go into the world and make their own way, and be successful, without my help. In my world view, that is the best gift I can give them.
I personally come from a background of rural poverty, my parents weren't able to help me at all financially, but growing up working shoulder to shoulder with my father on the (meager) family farm taught me the value of hard work and thrift. Which I think have served me well (I am clearly biased).
So, from that angle, I don't want my children to see my wealth as their wealth, or my success as their success. I would like them to view my success as the result of hard work and perseverance, and an example of what they can achieve, indeed, they can achieve more.
I post this merely as an example of my thought process, which is evolving. I can see how there is value in what you relate here. So thanks to you in a non-distancing sense :)
You may be reading a lot of value into this distinction. To me, as an American, equality in a peer relationship is important but bookkeeping and debt is destructive. The 50:50 split is just an ongoing division of labor, it is explicitly NOT debt because it never accumulates. Any "thank you" is an acknowledgment of gratitude or merely a polite exit to a conversation one doesn't want to continue. The debt that children have to their parents is to be paid to the next generation.
It's another one of those cultural quirks that seems more telling than it actually is. For example, because Russians don't smile to strangers, they're cold and unfriendly. Or because Americans do smile to strangers, we're untrustworthy and insincere.
The reason we think it's so big is because we're translating the literal contents (smile, "thank you") but ending up with a completely different meaning or set of pragmatics. and then we miss the ability to use set phrases in our native language. Just like you can say "pleased to meet you" in Enhlish, but you can't say "よろしくお願いします".
Edit: to clarify, cultures are different and language reflects that, but I think a lot of set phrases reflect history more than they reflect living culture.
What if that system also fosters corruption and nepotism? Need to hire somebody for a job? family first (you owe them remember?), tender a contract (family first) the list goes on. You are a public servant, someone comes to your office to get you to do the job that you were hired to do, but they're not your family, you don't owe them anything... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India
Yeah that system is better because it fosters closer family ties.
> That day, I made the mistake of telling him, in English, “Thank you for inviting me” before leaving his house, realizing the import of my words only after they had left my mouth. He didn’t respond, but I saw his expression turn sour. He was filled with disgust. I couldn’t even apologize for thanking him. The damage was done.
So of course, implicit debt and duty is great because of the closer ties. On the other hand, you run into the risk of hurting people and breaking those ties quite easily by simply talking about it.
That's not a scenario that would happen by mistake in ordinary condition, only when foreign influence is put into the mix. In a multi-cultural context, the American way seems a bit more robust to mistake.
My wife is American and I'm Bangladeshi, and we definitely see the differences you're talking about in our relationships with our families. Especially because we have crazy work/commute schedules and also a toddler, so we end up leaning heavily on our mothers for childcare.
I don't think I agree with your conclusion about "closer family ties." My mother in law is definitely very transactional, while my mother isn't, but my mother will also build up resentment when we exceed her unstated boundaries that will manifest into a fight months later.
Obviously a lot of that is just the particular personalities involved, but I would not be surprised if there was a general tendency for Americans to negotiate more up-front to avoid conflict later.
I think the cultural difference comes particularly to a head in the Sheryl Sandberg example. Let's face it--the typical Indian/Bangladeshi solution to negotiating chores 50:50 with your spouse is for the woman to do much more of the domestic work and sacrifice her career for her husband's. That's common everywhere, of course, but I think it's a particularly difficult problem to solve if you look down on calculating inter-spousal debt.
> I have a feeling that the non-American system is better because it fosters closer family ties, but that might just be because that's the system I'm familiar with.
Fostering closer family ties has good sides and bad sides.
Individuals from a toxic family background benefit from being able to keep their family at arm's length or farther, which isn't as acceptable in cultures that so strongly and universally emphasize family loyalty. Not all parents are good parents!
I think this is an interesting idea. Cultures are often categorized as "individualistic" or "shame-based"...but I wonder if "debt-based" might be a good descriptor for many cultures.
There's definitely a range of individualism in the U.S. as well, some people take it to a kind of local maximum, some people just try to find workable balances. When my wife first immigrated here from South Korea, she struggled to characterize "America" in simple, digestible differences so that she could work within the society. No a couple decades later, she's developed a more nuanced view, and understands that it's very hard to say "Americans do x" without going into a higher level of abstraction like "some Americans do x" when explaining something to her friends.
Better? That depends on what socioeconomic sphere you're in. This kind of familial dependency protects entrenched interests. If you don't care about upward mobility and social progress, it may suit you.
It has produced some interesting outcomes over history:
Historically, the fate of family members in Russia was deeply intertwined. With this government-sponsored arrangement, family members of "revolutionaries" would be punished. This was an effective device of the tsars for a long time. Eventually, though, they enforced familial punishment with the wrong family and created a formidable adversary -- V.I. Lenin. Creating Lenin The Revolutionary in a deeply disgruntled society was the tipping point.
On some level there's a tradeoff between individual autonomy and social interdependence, and different cultures fall at different places on the continuum between them.
Clearly the U.S. is at one extreme. But I don't know that one is "better": there are different benefits and costs. In the U.S. people have huge amounts of personal freedom and autonomy, but are more likely to live thousands of miles away from their friends and family, and struggle with loneliness. But there are different costs when you erode individual autonomy.
That was implicit model I used growing up, until learned people use "thank you" differently. I was reluctant to thank anyone for doing what I thought was already their obligation -- it didn't make sense. And likewise, I would be confused at receiving thanks for what I thought was my job.
(Naturally, in either case, it would make sense if the thanked did something that went above-and-beyond.)
My in-laws are from a culture that is one of the heaviest in terms of familial obligation. Parental or elder sibling authority is strictly observed. Once they relocated to the US, it only took a few years for them to realize they could tell their ornery older relatives to fuck off and not become social pariahs. They love America and want their kids to totally free of dependence on them.
Perhaps he doesn't understand that "thank you" is usually meant as a simple, polite acknowledgement. A heartfelt expression of gratitude in English is said not with a stock phrase, but by stopping, looking at the person, and explaining your gratitude to them.
He is confusing our stock phrase with something that is an entirely different concept.
If I may extend my own post for a moment, this is a common problem of trying to translate words & phrases directly.
For example, most people know that "Arigato" is Japanese for "Thank you". Except that's really wrong. Arigato is inappropriate in most cases, and "Sumasen" or variations should be used. But if you tried to translate them via the dictionary, you'd be quite confused as arigato comes from "thank" and su(mi)masen from "to finish".
You can't just say "This equals this" when you work in another language or culture. You have to learn the native meaning itself.
As an English speaker, I agree with others above that this article misses a huge point about our language.
Yes we use thank you a lot, even for some things people may consider 'trite'. I'm from the UK so I use it a HELL of a lot.
But I want to call out 2 points based on this:
1. As mentioned above, just thanking someone can turn their day around, and most times I feel rude if I do not say it (that is my cultural upbringing).
2. For me/the English culture, it is a multi-faceted word. It can be used in everyday scenarios, or it can be used in deeply emotional ones.
The article doesn't seem to acknowledge this, so perhaps the OP hasn't truly grasped the intricacies of the language.
As an aside, I did find the information about the attitude towards 'thanks' in Hindi really interesting. Thanks!*
I have also heard discussions on the rise of the double thank-you in American English. For a long while, the acknowledgement response to a "thank you" was "you're welcome". But during the last century, it has become more common to respond to a "thank you" with a "thank you".
Usually, in a retail setting, this isn't exactly an even exchange. The business says to the customer "thank you [for your business]" and the customer says to the actual person wearing the employee mantle "thank you [for serving me]". One does not thank an ATM or vending machine, but it is appropriate to thank a human bank teller or retail clerk. We know that the employee has no personal reason to thank us for our business, and we also know that the cash we pay at the register is thanks enough for the corporate body. So we thank the person in front of us.
Implicit in all those little, minor thanks is the acknowledgement that the recipient has the capacity to appreciate gratitude, however minor it may be, and may not get it as often as it is deserved.
This is slightly related to the peer-to-peer double thank you. In that case, each party is thanking the other for their participation in a transaction that yields a mutual benefit. A talk-show host thanks an interviewee for filling airtime on the program, and the guest thanks the host for the use of their distribution platform, or perhaps for the opportunity to show off their temporary fame to their friends. A person selling his car thanks the buyer for trading up from used car to cash, and the buyer thanks the seller for trading up from cash to used car.
This has become so prevalent that saying "you're welcome" in response to a "thank you" now implies that the act was altruistic, which may make those averse to bragging slightly uncomfortable. That would result in a more deprecating acknowledgement, such as "it wasn't any trouble" or "no problem" or "I'm just happy to help".
It seems that the article is saying that in India, a "thank you" is more akin to "this concludes our business for today; please send me your invoice, so that I may settle our accounts". That does not translate to the typical American use of "thank you". It does also translate to that, sometimes, but those uses are marked by intonation and context.
I say thank you often, and every single time it's because I feel gratitude. This guy is doing it wrong.
> After moving to America, it took me several years to say thanks to people without actually meaning it. Putting “thank you” on the tip of my tongue, ready to escape at a moment’s notice, rather than extracting it from the depths of my heart, was one of the hardest language lessons I had to learn in the United States.
I completely agree. I was raised to say "please" and "thank you", not because it's makes me look good, but because it's showing appreciation, gratitude and empathy for the other person's work on your behalf. Politeness is about empathy, not self-aggrandizing.
I've been told more than once that just being polite to a cashier or a waiter has turned bad days they were having around. Treating other people decently is its own reward.
As an American, I've sometimes been bothered by the use of thank you. It is fine as a pleasantry at a restaurant. But it always felt odd coming from a boss or from the company CEO. I think to myself, "I didn't do this piece of work as a favor to you, I didn't because you are paying me and you told me to do it." It is interesting to read that this view is more common in other cultures. I also dislike putting "thank you" in an email, before they have agreed to do the favor or task. It feels very presumptuous. Am I crazy or do other people feel the same way.
> a modern boss is tolerant, he behaves like a colleague of ours, sharing dirty jokes, inviting us for a drink, openly displaying his weaknesses, admitting that he is “merely human like us”. He is deeply offended if we remind him that he is our boss – however, it is this very rejection of explicit authority that guarantees his de facto power.
> This is why the first gesture of liberation is to force the master to act as one: our only defence is to reject his “warm human” approach and to insist that he should treat us with cold distance. We live in weird times in which we are compelled to behave as if we are free, so that the unsayable is not our freedom but the very fact of our servitude.
I had a manager who made a practice of thanking people when they did things he had asked them to. I hadn't seen it done that assiduously before, and I rather got to like it. I try to do the same now, when appropriate.
I agree, though, that pre-thanking someone before they've done what you ask is presumptuous.
I live in the UK, and whenever I travel back to Bulgaria, I get told off for saying "sorry" and "thank you" all the time.
In Bulgarian, the word for "thank you" is "благодаря" ("blagodarya") but people often fall back to a simple "мерси" ("merci" - the French word, yes) for transactional thank-yous.
I'm not really sure whether that's because "благодаря" is reserved for sincere, heartfelt thanksgiving or because the word is just too long to say very often.
In Polish before 90s the French "pardon" was used for casual "I'm sorry" (for example when you bump into someone) as opposed to native (and more intense) "przepraszam" used when you really mean it.
Since 90s (and all the American movies) most people switched to English "sorry" instead of the French "pardon" for casual "I'm sorry". The original "przepraszam" is still mostly used for more meaningful apologies. And "pardon" is still there if you want to sound old-style casual.
And yes, part of it is - "przepraszam" is longer and sounds more "dignified". The thinking goes "if you're really sorry you should work for it".
I think it's mostly because it's so long and somewhat convoluted. "Благодаря" has 4 syllables while "мерси" only has 2. It's similar to saying "thanks" instead of "thank you" but that comparison is lost because the two words in Bulgarian are so different.
I think it's important to point out that India is very culturally diverse. I have lived in Mumbai for 22 years, and Canada for 8 years. I have said "thank you" to people all my life. I do it consciously and sincerely - cashiers, rickshaw drivers, waiters, friends, peers, everybody. I don't think I've ever offended anybody - at least not that I know of.
With regard to family - neither of my parents' respective families are overtly religious, and neither of them have Hindu or Muslim ancestries. We say thank you to one another all the time. In fact, I can't relate to what the author is saying at all! In the spirit of sharing/learning about new cultures, here's hoping that the 7% of us (7 million people) aren't painted with this broad brush.
I read that article and kept thinking it didn't sound like my family or friends at all. We are Pakistanis & Indians, American born, immigrants, and some back in motherland. Almost everyone I know from Indian/Pakistani culture always says "thank you".
So yes it must be cultural difference in certain part of India, it certainly doesn't represent the most of Indians I know.
When I was an English teacher in China, I noticed something similar. Saying "thank you" to friends I made there resulted in a look of confusion, being taken aback, and not quite knowing how to respond. Over time I noticed a pattern and concluded that the interpretation was that friends shouldn't need to say thanks to each other, and saying it turned interaction into something more formal and less friendly.
Something I haven't seen anyone bring up is the way that "thank you" or "sorry" are delivered.
I'm not familiar enough with other languages to know if they have similar variances in speech, but in english you can very much change the meaning of your message with the tone of your voice or your rate of speech.
Nearly any phrase can come off as condescending given the right delivery.
Taught this kind of stuff in India for a while for a company providing phone support. It's not just "thank you", it's also "please" and "sorry" - both are considered rude/inappropriate outside of certain settings. There's a huge difference in etiquette that is a cause of frustration on phone calls (particularly for support). Both sides are (usually) trying to be polite, but perceive the other side as being very rude. This is one of the main reasons (of about a half a dozen) that cause support calls to go sour.
Come to think of it, in India I have almost never really "thanked" many among my family, but have done it for almost everybody else, and often I have found a compliment works in places where a thanks might seem too formal. Saying "I had an amazing time at your place and will miss the food" carries the sense of gratitude without the sense of formality in India.
Although not as extreme as in this example, the American custom of saying "thank you" and "please" all the time is considered excessive to the point of being insultingly trite by many cultures.
And I regularly hear Americans complain about people from other cultures being impolite because they don't say "thank you" or "please" all the time.
AFAIK in most cultures these kind of phrases are generally more formal and tend to signal a certain distance that in the wrong context can be interpreted as condescending.
In America we are conditioned with a moral duty to be appreciative for what we have and how fortunate we are. It probably stems from the religious nature of some of the early colonies, which religion was Calvinist in nature and big on divine providence, and how it is only by the whim of God that you have a roof over your head, food on the table, a supportive family, etc. We set aside an entire day -- Thanksgiving -- for expressing gratitude and in practical terms that's stretched over a four-day weekend.
In Greece, saying "please" can sound condescending. You pretty much want to avoid saying please, and politeness comes from the phrasing. "Can you bring me a glass of water" is the polite version of "bring me a glass of water", although the latter is also usually made polite by adding "re" (to friends) or adding "a bit" ("bring me a glass of water for a bit", it doesn't translate well).
Saying "please" to anyone you're even slightly familiar with would be at least weird, and in many cases condescending and offputting.
"Thanks" is somewhere between the US and India, where you don't thank everyone all the time, but do thank people who've done you a favor, or in service settings, people who have been good to you (good servers/shopkeepers/etc).
In spain we have a mix of both; although it is very normal to say it formulaically to e.g. a shop clerk, we are also very often very direct and don't use it, just using tone or phrasing - and foreigners (including spanish-speaking ones) are usually shocked by how rude we seem to be.
Over here in Germany we even had an optional 'Cultural differences' workshop you could participate in, which discussed things - both for Germans and for people from the US, the presenter was from the US - that might seem awkward at first.
The ~social fillwords~ were on the list. Lots of thank you / you're welcome plus the really irritating 'How are you?' variations.
Wouldn't you find these differences between any culture though? Is Hindi/Indian vs. English/US especially surprising?
> Lots of ... irritating 'How are you?' variations.
Pity that. I frequently ask people "how are you" at the beginning of a conversation, and it's very often ignored on the assumption that i'm using a formula, but i am usually genuinely curious ask to what's up, trying to get them to say something about themselves since the last time we spoke. Pity this idiom has suffered inflation, perhaps i should think of another to replace it.
“Thank you for coming to my home” actually meant, “It’s time for you to get out of my house.”
Seriously? Find new friends. When I thank people after hosting an event I do mean to thank them for choosing to spend their time with me. I feel like this post is blently dishonest and caricaturing just to tell a nice story.
There's a similar problem with my native language[1] and "sorry". The standard word, samaavenna literally means "forgive me". As a former British Colony (Sri Lanka) most of us have got used to the English words -- even non-English speakers will automatically say "sorry" or "thank you".
But once "thank you" is said, most people awkwardly respond with "ah", because there's no phrase in the language for "you're welcome".
Come to think of it, we don't even have a universal second person (a "you"). You need to know the social standing of the person before you can address him/her!
India is a more hierarchical society in general, and one doesn't feel the need to thank the servile class for services rendered. Outside family and close circle of friends, a "thank you" can lubricate social interactions.
[+] [-] littletimmy|10 years ago|reply
Reminds of the book "Debt" by David Graeber. He talks about how many cultures have systems where everyone is indebted to their family and community, and this debt is never to be settled. To want to settle a debt (or to even calculate it) would indicate that a relationship has ended. So it is a huge culture shock to see the degree to which calculation plays a part in US relationships (like Sheryl Sandberg precisely splitting domestic chores with her husband 50:50).
I have a feeling that the non-American system is better because it fosters closer family ties, but that might just be because that's the system I'm familiar with.
[+] [-] marktangotango|10 years ago|reply
This is very interesting, and brings to mind something I've been struggling with recently (I'm USA-ian by the way). As a father I want to instill in my children a sense of self reliance, a sense that they can go into the world and make their own way, and be successful, without my help. In my world view, that is the best gift I can give them.
I personally come from a background of rural poverty, my parents weren't able to help me at all financially, but growing up working shoulder to shoulder with my father on the (meager) family farm taught me the value of hard work and thrift. Which I think have served me well (I am clearly biased).
So, from that angle, I don't want my children to see my wealth as their wealth, or my success as their success. I would like them to view my success as the result of hard work and perseverance, and an example of what they can achieve, indeed, they can achieve more.
I post this merely as an example of my thought process, which is evolving. I can see how there is value in what you relate here. So thanks to you in a non-distancing sense :)
[+] [-] klodolph|10 years ago|reply
It's another one of those cultural quirks that seems more telling than it actually is. For example, because Russians don't smile to strangers, they're cold and unfriendly. Or because Americans do smile to strangers, we're untrustworthy and insincere.
The reason we think it's so big is because we're translating the literal contents (smile, "thank you") but ending up with a completely different meaning or set of pragmatics. and then we miss the ability to use set phrases in our native language. Just like you can say "pleased to meet you" in Enhlish, but you can't say "よろしくお願いします".
Edit: to clarify, cultures are different and language reflects that, but I think a lot of set phrases reflect history more than they reflect living culture.
[+] [-] ManFromUranus|10 years ago|reply
Yeah that system is better because it fosters closer family ties.
[+] [-] geon|10 years ago|reply
There is just no coorelation. The american "thank you" is simply not translatable to idiomatic hindi.
An american is not diluting the importance of gratitude by saying thanks to the bus driver.
Just as an indian is not an ungrateful bastard for not saying thanks to his parents.
[+] [-] gutnor|10 years ago|reply
> That day, I made the mistake of telling him, in English, “Thank you for inviting me” before leaving his house, realizing the import of my words only after they had left my mouth. He didn’t respond, but I saw his expression turn sour. He was filled with disgust. I couldn’t even apologize for thanking him. The damage was done.
So of course, implicit debt and duty is great because of the closer ties. On the other hand, you run into the risk of hurting people and breaking those ties quite easily by simply talking about it.
That's not a scenario that would happen by mistake in ordinary condition, only when foreign influence is put into the mix. In a multi-cultural context, the American way seems a bit more robust to mistake.
[+] [-] rayiner|10 years ago|reply
I don't think I agree with your conclusion about "closer family ties." My mother in law is definitely very transactional, while my mother isn't, but my mother will also build up resentment when we exceed her unstated boundaries that will manifest into a fight months later.
Obviously a lot of that is just the particular personalities involved, but I would not be surprised if there was a general tendency for Americans to negotiate more up-front to avoid conflict later.
I think the cultural difference comes particularly to a head in the Sheryl Sandberg example. Let's face it--the typical Indian/Bangladeshi solution to negotiating chores 50:50 with your spouse is for the woman to do much more of the domestic work and sacrifice her career for her husband's. That's common everywhere, of course, but I think it's a particularly difficult problem to solve if you look down on calculating inter-spousal debt.
[+] [-] ta119a08|10 years ago|reply
Fostering closer family ties has good sides and bad sides.
Individuals from a toxic family background benefit from being able to keep their family at arm's length or farther, which isn't as acceptable in cultures that so strongly and universally emphasize family loyalty. Not all parents are good parents!
[+] [-] bane|10 years ago|reply
There's definitely a range of individualism in the U.S. as well, some people take it to a kind of local maximum, some people just try to find workable balances. When my wife first immigrated here from South Korea, she struggled to characterize "America" in simple, digestible differences so that she could work within the society. No a couple decades later, she's developed a more nuanced view, and understands that it's very hard to say "Americans do x" without going into a higher level of abstraction like "some Americans do x" when explaining something to her friends.
[+] [-] Dowwie|10 years ago|reply
It has produced some interesting outcomes over history:
Historically, the fate of family members in Russia was deeply intertwined. With this government-sponsored arrangement, family members of "revolutionaries" would be punished. This was an effective device of the tsars for a long time. Eventually, though, they enforced familial punishment with the wrong family and created a formidable adversary -- V.I. Lenin. Creating Lenin The Revolutionary in a deeply disgruntled society was the tipping point.
[+] [-] panglott|10 years ago|reply
Clearly the U.S. is at one extreme. But I don't know that one is "better": there are different benefits and costs. In the U.S. people have huge amounts of personal freedom and autonomy, but are more likely to live thousands of miles away from their friends and family, and struggle with loneliness. But there are different costs when you erode individual autonomy.
[+] [-] SilasX|10 years ago|reply
(Naturally, in either case, it would make sense if the thanked did something that went above-and-beyond.)
[+] [-] tootie|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dharmach|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seraph787|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmadsen|10 years ago|reply
He is confusing our stock phrase with something that is an entirely different concept.
[+] [-] jmadsen|10 years ago|reply
For example, most people know that "Arigato" is Japanese for "Thank you". Except that's really wrong. Arigato is inappropriate in most cases, and "Sumasen" or variations should be used. But if you tried to translate them via the dictionary, you'd be quite confused as arigato comes from "thank" and su(mi)masen from "to finish".
You can't just say "This equals this" when you work in another language or culture. You have to learn the native meaning itself.
[+] [-] jpatokal|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chatwinra|10 years ago|reply
Yes we use thank you a lot, even for some things people may consider 'trite'. I'm from the UK so I use it a HELL of a lot.
But I want to call out 2 points based on this:
1. As mentioned above, just thanking someone can turn their day around, and most times I feel rude if I do not say it (that is my cultural upbringing).
2. For me/the English culture, it is a multi-faceted word. It can be used in everyday scenarios, or it can be used in deeply emotional ones.
The article doesn't seem to acknowledge this, so perhaps the OP hasn't truly grasped the intricacies of the language.
As an aside, I did find the information about the attitude towards 'thanks' in Hindi really interesting. Thanks!*
*sorry, couldn't resist. ;)
[+] [-] logfromblammo|10 years ago|reply
Usually, in a retail setting, this isn't exactly an even exchange. The business says to the customer "thank you [for your business]" and the customer says to the actual person wearing the employee mantle "thank you [for serving me]". One does not thank an ATM or vending machine, but it is appropriate to thank a human bank teller or retail clerk. We know that the employee has no personal reason to thank us for our business, and we also know that the cash we pay at the register is thanks enough for the corporate body. So we thank the person in front of us.
Implicit in all those little, minor thanks is the acknowledgement that the recipient has the capacity to appreciate gratitude, however minor it may be, and may not get it as often as it is deserved.
This is slightly related to the peer-to-peer double thank you. In that case, each party is thanking the other for their participation in a transaction that yields a mutual benefit. A talk-show host thanks an interviewee for filling airtime on the program, and the guest thanks the host for the use of their distribution platform, or perhaps for the opportunity to show off their temporary fame to their friends. A person selling his car thanks the buyer for trading up from used car to cash, and the buyer thanks the seller for trading up from cash to used car.
This has become so prevalent that saying "you're welcome" in response to a "thank you" now implies that the act was altruistic, which may make those averse to bragging slightly uncomfortable. That would result in a more deprecating acknowledgement, such as "it wasn't any trouble" or "no problem" or "I'm just happy to help".
It seems that the article is saying that in India, a "thank you" is more akin to "this concludes our business for today; please send me your invoice, so that I may settle our accounts". That does not translate to the typical American use of "thank you". It does also translate to that, sometimes, but those uses are marked by intonation and context.
[+] [-] haphazardeous|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulsutter|10 years ago|reply
> After moving to America, it took me several years to say thanks to people without actually meaning it. Putting “thank you” on the tip of my tongue, ready to escape at a moment’s notice, rather than extracting it from the depths of my heart, was one of the hardest language lessons I had to learn in the United States.
[+] [-] bane|10 years ago|reply
I've been told more than once that just being polite to a cashier or a waiter has turned bad days they were having around. Treating other people decently is its own reward.
[+] [-] ajuc|10 years ago|reply
I guess the word "gratitude" is routinely badly translated, too, in that case.
[+] [-] darkroasted|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ljak|10 years ago|reply
> This is why the first gesture of liberation is to force the master to act as one: our only defence is to reject his “warm human” approach and to insist that he should treat us with cold distance. We live in weird times in which we are compelled to behave as if we are free, so that the unsayable is not our freedom but the very fact of our servitude.
- Slavoj Žižek
[+] [-] ScottBurson|10 years ago|reply
I agree, though, that pre-thanking someone before they've done what you ask is presumptuous.
[+] [-] andrey-p|10 years ago|reply
In Bulgarian, the word for "thank you" is "благодаря" ("blagodarya") but people often fall back to a simple "мерси" ("merci" - the French word, yes) for transactional thank-yous.
I'm not really sure whether that's because "благодаря" is reserved for sincere, heartfelt thanksgiving or because the word is just too long to say very often.
[+] [-] ajuc|10 years ago|reply
Since 90s (and all the American movies) most people switched to English "sorry" instead of the French "pardon" for casual "I'm sorry". The original "przepraszam" is still mostly used for more meaningful apologies. And "pardon" is still there if you want to sound old-style casual.
And yes, part of it is - "przepraszam" is longer and sounds more "dignified". The thinking goes "if you're really sorry you should work for it".
[+] [-] vlasev|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bolaft|10 years ago|reply
Do you know why?
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] fareesh|10 years ago|reply
With regard to family - neither of my parents' respective families are overtly religious, and neither of them have Hindu or Muslim ancestries. We say thank you to one another all the time. In fact, I can't relate to what the author is saying at all! In the spirit of sharing/learning about new cultures, here's hoping that the 7% of us (7 million people) aren't painted with this broad brush.
[+] [-] sudoherethere|10 years ago|reply
So yes it must be cultural difference in certain part of India, it certainly doesn't represent the most of Indians I know.
[+] [-] frandroid|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanAndersen|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tcfunk|10 years ago|reply
I'm not familiar enough with other languages to know if they have similar variances in speech, but in english you can very much change the meaning of your message with the tone of your voice or your rate of speech.
Nearly any phrase can come off as condescending given the right delivery.
[+] [-] fredley|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codeN|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] makeitsuckless|10 years ago|reply
And I regularly hear Americans complain about people from other cultures being impolite because they don't say "thank you" or "please" all the time.
AFAIK in most cultures these kind of phrases are generally more formal and tend to signal a certain distance that in the wrong context can be interpreted as condescending.
[+] [-] bitwize|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] StavrosK|10 years ago|reply
Saying "please" to anyone you're even slightly familiar with would be at least weird, and in many cases condescending and offputting.
"Thanks" is somewhere between the US and India, where you don't thank everyone all the time, but do thank people who've done you a favor, or in service settings, people who have been good to you (good servers/shopkeepers/etc).
[+] [-] harperlee|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mythealias|10 years ago|reply
[1]: http://www.russianlife.com/blog/why-dont-russians-smile/
[+] [-] darklajid|10 years ago|reply
The ~social fillwords~ were on the list. Lots of thank you / you're welcome plus the really irritating 'How are you?' variations.
Wouldn't you find these differences between any culture though? Is Hindi/Indian vs. English/US especially surprising?
[+] [-] toothbrush|10 years ago|reply
Pity that. I frequently ask people "how are you" at the beginning of a conversation, and it's very often ignored on the assumption that i'm using a formula, but i am usually genuinely curious ask to what's up, trying to get them to say something about themselves since the last time we spoke. Pity this idiom has suffered inflation, perhaps i should think of another to replace it.
[+] [-] jonathonf|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dudul|10 years ago|reply
Seriously? Find new friends. When I thank people after hosting an event I do mean to thank them for choosing to spend their time with me. I feel like this post is blently dishonest and caricaturing just to tell a nice story.
[+] [-] hliyan|10 years ago|reply
But once "thank you" is said, most people awkwardly respond with "ah", because there's no phrase in the language for "you're welcome".
Come to think of it, we don't even have a universal second person (a "you"). You need to know the social standing of the person before you can address him/her!
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinhalese_language
[+] [-] kalari|10 years ago|reply