Tuesday, January 10, 2012

No Problem. I'm Fine.

I had to laugh when I saw the comments on a nice DailyWritingTips review of "Garner's Modern American Usage" quickly devolve into a discussion of the plague of "No problem" as a substitute for "You're welcome" in response to "Thank you."


Now, I'll continue to make a prescriptivist spectacle of myself and argue that caring less and not caring less are two different things, and that literally doesn't mean "not literally." I'll roll my eyes at the new vowel shift, which has today's youth sitting at their dusks to take their tusts (and hoping to do well to please Mom and Dodd). I'll refuse to say, OK, fine, if everybody gets confused about stanch and staunch and gantlet and gauntlet, I guess they win. But, for the life of me, I cannot fathom why anyone would be so married to the "You're welcome" convention that any deviation causes them emotional distress.

I'd write a little more about that, but I guess I already did.

Oh, and -- as I said in the comments to that blog post -- I'm fine with "I'm fine" as a response to "Can I get you something to drink?" You don't have to be named Geoffrey to see that it makes perfect sense as shorthand for "I'm fine without a lovely beverage, thank you."

4 comments:

Bill the Butcher said...

In Bunglistan, they say "No mention" - which itself devolved from "Don't mention it" - in response.

Anonymous said...

um good with that

Debby Willett said...

It's all a cultural thing.

In Australia, it's "No worries."
Which works in many venues.

Anonymous said...

No, um good.

Whatever.