You raised the topic. Other people responded to that topic. That was not a derailment.
I just checked my copy of The Internet Rulebook and I couldn’t find this regulation.
Right. They never fail.
very little is empirical in grammar.
But if you’re seriusly alleging that “thanks” is considered slang, then you should be able to provide a cite for it. Try the OED for starters.
Of course. To reject it out of hand like that is almost willfully myopic. It has nothing to do with standard language or idioms.
The more I think about it, the wronger jtur’s orgigial statement seems. “Merci” is the informal way to express gratitude in French; it shoud probably be translated as “thanks”. I think the formal way is something like “Je vous remercie” (forgive the misspelling if any); that would be “thank you.”
He would be wasting his time, as I already checked the OED (see post #7) and it does not support his position.
Similarly: I don’t know how informal Russian “спасибо” (spasibo) really is, but there is a more formal expression for thanks – Благодарю вас (blagodaryu vas, based on blagod “grace”).
I don’t read prime-numbered posts. 
So it is not a derailment to query a post, but it is a derailment to respond the query, and then it is not a derailment for a third party to pile on. OK, got it.
So are you going to provide a cite that “thanks” is slang? Or answer the observtion that “je vous remercie” is formal way, in French, to express gratitude (and thus would be translated as “thank you” in English), while “merci” is the informal way, and thus would be translated as “thanks”?
I didn’t say any of the posts, including yours, was a derailment.
While it’s a game thread, the trivia is supposed to be accurate. Yours was not, in my opinion, so I questioned your post. It’s no different than any other questionable “fact” on this board, and so is absolutely not a derailment on my part. You defended your position, and I defended mine, so subject closed (or so I thought). I have no interest in a continued debate over your pedantry on the subject.
How about dictionaries:
Not one of them lists “thanks” as being slang or non-standard. Some indicate it is informal.
Thanks = merci
Collins French-English Dictionary
You know, when there is clear and overwhelming evidence that you made a mistake, you’re not going enhance your credibility on this board by insisting you didn’t.
First of all, I never called it “slang” – I characterized it as a “slangy idiom”, a marker that a person in the conversation was willing to use more informal language, which would open the door to more slangy discourse…
Second, I made it a point not to enter into this topic, because I has said all I had to say about it when challenged in the Trivia thread.
Third, my comments in this thread were not about that at all, but about being accused of derailing the Trivia thread, which I most certainly did not do. .
Fourth, I do not owe anybody an explanation nor an apology for the view that I expressed in a different thread and laid to rest there.
Fifth, I am not obliged to say I am wrong just because you (or anybody else) say I’m wrong.
And sixth, why is this here, instead of in The Pit?
I am reporting this post as an infringement on my prerogatives. By long-standing tradiation, in any thread in which I participate, the most illogical, intransigent, and ridiculous positions are reserved for me. It’s been that way since 1857; t’s supposed to be that way forever. By making the above assertions you have violated the social compact that holds the board together.
Exceedingly weak.
Yet you did anyway. And are doubling down on the nonsense.
We don’t say you are wrong, numerous dictionaries say you are wrong. And when you refuse to acknowledge you are wrong when it’s been clearly demonstrated, you just lose credibility. Suit yourself.
An old French fuck. Bastard.