Saturday, November 14, 2009

Magic Words: Please & Thank You

I grew up learning that you can't get anything without using Magic Words:

Please
and
Thank You


I teach this to my students as well. They know they can't play a game unless they say "Please" and they can't leave my class until they've said "Thank you, teacher" Saying "Please" and "Thank you" is something that I'm very particular about. I think people who don't use these 'magic words' are downright rude. Simple as that.

Two words. With all the abbreviations and shortenings of words in text and online chat these days, it's also understood as two letters - TY. I mean, how lazy can you be to type that?

You lose nothing by saying Thank You. In fact, you gain appreciation of the person you're saying it to.

I recently Tweeted that, "I think it's important and courteous for writers and bloggers to thank their readers"

I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I try to acknowledge every single e-mail, text and blog comment. Regardless of who they're from or what they say. Even just by saying, "Thank you" it means I've noticed their correspondence with me. It's just respect, isn't it?

It grates my nerves when people don't respond to a text message or return a call. No one can be THAT busy to spare 10 seconds at the very least. I think of it like this:

If someone were talking to you right in front of you, would you blatantly ignore them? Well, I don't know about you but I certainly wouldn't. Also because I hate being ignored. So much so that it makes my intestines want to turn inside out. So why ignore their text or email? By using a question mark, it indicates that I'm looking and waiting for an answer. I certainly don't use that punctuation mark for my health and well-being!

Having said that, if you're reading this now... Thank you for reading this post :-)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

thank you for writing this :) allways reminds me to my military time where they didnt want us to say "thank you" after recieving food. i allways said ty ;)

Sheetal said...

Hi Michael :-)
THANK YOU for reading this, and you're welcome! Your military didn't want you to say "thank you"? Why..?

Nicki said...

Aaawww, thanks. It's always great to have manners :)

Sheetal said...

Nicki,
I agree :-) And ... THANK YOU for your 'visits' and comments! Always appreciated xo

Anonymous said...

Hey I used to read that book to my daughters.

cheers from Singapore