Where did it originate?

Posted by Teach on March 01, 2004

In Reply to: Where did it originate? posted by sarah on February 28, 2004

: I had someone ask me the other day what I thought that "Thank you" and "Your welcome" meant. And to be honest it was the first time that I really thought about it . It made me wonder why we say your welcome for something of a good gesture. When Your WElcome sometimes means to come in( to a home or place). So my question would be, where did both of these sayings originally start?

Do you mean you're (you are), or your (belonging to you). If the latter then the phrase is meaningless, if the former the phrase is self-explanatory.

As to thank you - this is less of a phrase and more a pair of words whose meaning is indistinguishable from their dictionary definitions in that they convey thanks from the speaker to the defined recipient.