I was watching a video from two years ago about different social norms and this showed up. Found someone questioning the same eight years ago on reddit (when it seemed less normalized). It feels so weird not being aware of this shift, even as a foreigner.
Interesting. I’ll have to find some of these videos. I worked customer service in the early 2000s. We were trained to never let a customer be in a situation where they would need to say “thank you,” and that we should thank them. This was in Canada, by the way. If we did get a thanks, we would never say, “you’re welcome.” We would say something like, “don’t worry about it.”
In France, where I live now, in some of the situations mentioned in the article the response would be a simple “c’est moi,” meaning, “it’s me who thanks you.” In a restaurant setting the waiter might just answer with “bon appétit.”
Thanks for this share, because I teach international business and communication and this will be an excellent subject for discussion.
We have our “c’est moi” in Brazil as well: “eu que agradeço”. Honestly, mmhmm is what seems alien to me.
It sounds absurdly rude if not sarcastic to me, I think I’d rather even a sarcastic “you’re welcome” than that because at least it sounds like the person acknowledged your gratitude. Really, if you’re gonna use “mmhmm” you might as well just stay silent.
Ah so that’s what that means. I thought I was mishearing. That’s pretty close to what I was brought up with, “it’s my pleasure” (meaning it’s me who is pleased to be helping).
The informal/vernacular in my country (NZ) is “sweet as” which puzzles most visitors, or sometimes “it’s all good”.
I like an “it’s all good,” that would put a smile on my face.
I was a little lost too for the first few weeks I lived in France. Equally, when they said things like “il (n’)y a pas de quoi” which I had to figure out on my own. I finally just straight up had to ask someone after asking for a lighter and thanking them.
We say “don’t think about it” in the Nordics, but also “a thousand thanks”. Wat do?
We also say “don’t worry about it” in the US, which seems pretty much the same.