As jtur88 put it, derailing a thread game.
It’s colloquial, but not slang.
“Thanks” is informal, but not slang. There are more than two registers of English dictio.
I’m afraid I challenged him on his trivia ‘fact’ and started it all. But I haven’t been back to continue the argument (if it’s still going on), other than to say that I don’t think that “thanks” is a slangy idiom at all, and used the term “giving thanks” as an example. The word has been around for at least a few hundred years.
It’s a sentence fragment, and therefore not “formal” proper standard school-house English.
Whatever.
This.
I just checked the OED, and “thanks” isn’t listed as slang there.
I see that the term has also been in use for a very long time. In the sense of “a much abbreviated expression of gratitude for a favour received or recognition of a service; = I give you my thanks, my thanks to you, or the like”, the earliest cites they have are from Shakespeare. In the sense of “the expression of gratitude; the grateful acknowledgement of a benefit or favour” the earliest cite is so old (1340) that it’s spelled “þonkes”.
I would have to ask, is English his first language?:dubious:
What he wrote is ridiculous. “Thanks” is in no sense slang. As has been said it is somewhat informal, but it is not colloquial. It would be perfectly legitimate to translate “merci” as “thanks” in many circumstances.
Other. It is standard, but informal, which is not quite “slang” but I guess could be considered “slangy.”
Edited to add: I see I was ninja’d by Shagnasty. But I give more leeway to “slangy.”
Either that, or s/he just doesn’t really know the meaning of the terms slang and idiom, and is tossing them around carelessly.
Respec’
As the only “yes” voter, I should explain that I was thinking it is informal rather than slang, a broad interpretation of slang.
Is it true that French has no “you’re welcome” reply?
Whoever said that?
I was in England a few weeks ago and people used “Cheers” in place of thanks or thank you most of the time. If “thanks” is slang, is “cheers” also slang: after all it could simply mean a shortening of the phrase “cheers to you for [whatever you did that deserves cheers].”
(As an aside, has this usage in England started only recently? I don’t think I had been exposed to this before in English media. Also, what’s the standard response? When people “cheered” me in England, I thought it would be awkward to say “no problem” or “you’re welcome”.)
Je vous remercie. Or the more informal de rien or pas de tout.
Probably that “the word ‘gullible’ isn’t in the dictionary” guy…
In French class we learned “je vous en prie”, although I’ve heard that’s a bit formal.
I’d just like to say, as a professional translator, that I do in fact use the word “thanks” on occasion, if it fits the register of the original text.
Accuse me of whatever you want, but not derailing. The previous post by Chefguy derailed the thread, by asking me a question concerning the authenticity of the trivia that i had offered, to which I defended myself. You then joined in yourself, to keep it derailed.
Furthermore, the empirical classification of something as “standardized” within an established academic or professional discipline is not subject to an informal internet poll for verification.