{"id":265,"date":"2014-11-14T01:42:39","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T16:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shortword\/?p=265"},"modified":"2014-12-08T23:03:12","modified_gmt":"2014-12-08T14:03:12","slug":"feeling-and-expressing-thanks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/2014\/11\/14\/feeling-and-expressing-thanks\/","title":{"rendered":"Feeling and Expressing Thanks"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

What do you mean when you say \u201cthank you\u201d? That is, what actually goes on in your mind when you thank someone for something?<\/p>\n

One helpful way to think about it is to consider your non-verbal language \u2013 your facial expressions, posture, tone of voice, and other body language \u2013 when you express thanks to someone. Do your eyes open wide, as if in wonder? Do you tend to squinch them a little, as if you were apologizing? Of course, different situations call for different expressions of thanks. That must be the case in just about every language and culture. But what is your default expression?<\/p>\n

How about the people around you? Try this. Observe people closely when they say thanks. Watch their facial expressions and body language. Listen to the sound of their voice. If you can, watch and compare people from different countries, backgrounds, ages.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014 \u2014\u2014 \u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting to consider theories about the origins of \u201cthank you\u201d in different languages. For instance, read this excerpt from David Graeber\u2019s Debt: The First 5,000 Years<\/a> (thanks to Brain Pickings<\/a> for the interesting article and quote) and ask yourself if there\u2019s any hint whatsoever of these senses in your own thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

\n

In English, \u201cthank you\u201d derives from \u201cthink,\u201d it originally meant, \u201cI will remember what you did for me\u201d \u2014 which is usually not true \u2014 but in other languages (the Portuguese obrigado<\/i> is a good example) the standard term follows the form of the English \u201cmuch obliged\u201d \u2014 it actually does mean \u201cI am in your debt.\u201d The French merci<\/i> is even more graphic: it derives from \u201cmercy,\u201d as in begging for mercy; by saying it you are symbolically placing yourself in your benefactor\u2019s power \u2014 since a debtor is, after all, a criminal. Saying \u201cyou\u2019re welcome,\u201d or \u201cit\u2019s nothing\u201d (French de rien<\/i>, Spanish de nada<\/i>) \u2014 the latter has at least the advantage of often being literally true \u2014 is a way of reassuring the one to whom one has passed the salt that you are not actually inscribing a debit in your imaginary moral account book. So is saying \u201cmy pleasure\u201d \u2014 you are saying, \u201cNo, actually, it\u2019s a credit, not a debit \u2014 you did me a favor because in asking me to pass the salt, you gave me the opportunity to do something I found rewarding in itself!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Or consider Japanese expressions for giving thanks. <\/p>\n

Take the word for \u201cthank you\u201d that foreigners usually learn first, \u201cArigato.\u201d When written with Chinese characters, \u201cArigato\u201d combines the character for \u201cbeing, to exist\u201d\u300c\u6709\u308b\u300d(aru) and \u201cdifficult\u201d\u300c\u96e3\u300d (kata). In its original sense, the word meant something like \u201cthis is a rare thing,\u201d or \u201cthis is rare and precious.\u201d According to one common explanation<\/a>, arigato<\/i> originated in the Middle Ages as a religious expression of gratitude for Buddha\u2019s mercy and other precious things that were difficult to get by oneself.<\/p>\n

Also consider the ubiquitous \u201csumimasen.\u201d This word can be used to say \u201cexcuse me\u201d when you bump into someone, to apologize for being late, to call a waiter in a restaurant… and, among other uses, to express your gratitude for all sorts of things. In fact, in everyday interactions, most people use sumimasen<\/i> more frequently than arigato<\/i> for saying thanks. How can a single word have so many different meanings, ranging from \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d to \u201cthank you\u201d? Once again, it helps to consider its etymology, even if people don\u2019t think exactly in these terms when they say sumimasen<\/i> today. Several Japanese sites I found give one or both of the following explanations:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Sumimasen<\/i> is the negative form of \u6f84\u3080 (sumu<\/i>), which means “to become clear, transparent, serene.\u201d The idea is that your heart is not serene or clear because of what someone else did for you, as if your heart is unsettled by the trouble they went to for you, or because of what you did to them.<\/li>\n
  2. Sumimasen<\/i> is the negative form of \u6e08\u3080 (sumu<\/i>), which means “to finish, to be finished.\u201d Here the basic idea is that you can\u2019t treat the matter as settled when someone does something for you. It\u2019s as if you\u2019re saying, \u201cIt can\u2019t end like this; I must do something for you in return\u201d (this comes close to the language of debt we saw above).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Watch an elderly Japanese lady say \u201cthank you\u201d to her neighbor for some kindness. If you didn\u2019t know the circumstances behind the sumimasen<\/i>\u2019s and arigato<\/i>\u2019s, and if you were to judge based on her facial expressions, tone of voice, and overall body language, you might think that she is apologizing for something rather than expressing gratitude. <\/p>\n

    I certainly do not mean to say that people think explicitly in terms of the word\u2019s etymology when they say arigato<\/i> or sumimasen<\/i>. But the non-verbal language that accompanies most sumimasen<\/i>\u2019s and many arigato<\/i>\u2019s suggests this about giving thanks in most Japanese contexts: when expressing thanks, it is important to communicate to the other person (especially through non-verbal language) your recognition that he or she has gone to some degree of trouble (or \u201cdifficulty\u201d) on your account.<\/p>\n

    \u2014\u2014 \u2014\u2014 \u2014\u2014  <\/p>\n

    Again, what do you mean, and how do you feel, when you say \u201cthank you\u201d or give thanks using other expressions?<\/p>\n

    Do your actual feelings of thankfulness tend to center around (or largely depend upon) the gift you received? Truth be told, I think that for me \u201cthank you\u201d is still partly connected to how happy I am to receive this or that gift. So when a gift or act doesn\u2019t live up to my expectations, it\u2019s easy for me to feel like my “thank you\u2019s\u201d are somehow fake and empty.<\/p>\n

    Do your feelings of thankfulness tend to center around (or focus upon) some level of wonder and delight over the other person\u2019s generosity toward you (that is, not so much on the gift or act itself as on the fact that they<\/i> did this or gave that to you<\/i>)? I believe that this feeling is often behind my thanksgiving, but not as much \u2013 and not as genuinely \u2013 as I would like for it to be. As for the language to express this sense of wonder, I suppose some variation of \u201cthank you,\u201d \u201carigato,\u201d or \u201ckansha shimasu\u201d does it best for me. How about you? <\/p>\n

    Do your feelings of gratitude tend to center around (or focus upon) the fact that the other person went to some trouble on your account? I imagine that some people view this as a guilt-laden (and therefore inferior) form of thanks \u2014 and I suppose it could be taken to unhealthy extremes, as with anything. But I think this heart of thanksgiving that focuses on the cost to the other person is quite beautiful, and I love all the drama that goes into a round of genuine sumimasen<\/i>\u2019s.<\/p>\n

    Thank you for reading! <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    What do you mean when you say \u201cthank you\u201d? That is, what actually goes on in your mind when you thank someone for something? One helpful way to think about it is to consider your non-verbal language \u2013 your facial expressions, posture, tone of voice, and other body language \u2013 when you express thanks to someone. Do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[42806,364],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cross-cultural","category-japan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5k4cx-4h","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions\/271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shortword\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}