"You are welcome" + Rule of Three (1819)

[Jonathan Lighter]

How about "No problem!" which has pretty much replaced it among under-40s ?

Other responses include "Sure!" and "Oh, That's all right!"

JL

Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Benjamin Zimmer
Subject: "You are welcome" + Rule of Three (1819)
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On the alt.usage.english newsgroup, there is a thread about the origins of
"You're welcome" as a formulaic response to "Thank you." I managed to
find an example of "You are welcome" from 1819 on APS:

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Boston Weekly Magazine, Feb 6, 1819, p. 51, col. 2

"And now, young man," added he, "shut the door, that no one may heare
us, and mark _me_. -- The first point of the law is _evidence_; the
second, _evidence_; the third, _evidence_!" "Thank you" said Tomkison.
"You are welcome," replied the lawyer, and now to supper, e'en with what
appetite you may, for you are to pay for it, and there my boy you are
_had_, -- but when you are as old as I am, you will know how to make a
better bargain."
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Of course, this is also notable as an early example of Arnold Zwicky's
"Rule of Three" as discussed here and in the Language Log last year:
.

I also found the contracted "You're welcome" from 1875, though this can no
doubt be antedated without too much difficulty:

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"Big Jack Small" by J.W. Gally
Overland monthly and Out West magazine
Volume 14, Issue 5, May 1875, p. 447

"Will our horses sink down in the flats so as to impede -- that is, so
that we can not get out?"
"O h--l, no. Only hard pullin' an' slow, hot work -- sockin' through the
stiff mud. I hed to uncouple an' drop all my trail-wagons, an' pull an'
holler an' punch round at both o' them flats fer two days, till my
cattle looks like the devil; but you kin go right along, only slow,
though -- very slow. The rest o' the road's all right -- no trouble."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome. But, I say, tell me -- I'm out now about two weeks
what's the news? Hey they caught them stage-robbers?"


or
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--Ben Zimmer

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