Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

We say   Thank you   to express gratitude or, plenty of it through the day, to be graceful at the conclusion of social transactions.

But what if a candidate for public office makes a huge deal of Thank you after they already nabbed it ? Like going around the country on a concert tour named a Thank you tour, after the deal is all wrapped.

Clearly this Thank you is not a casual Thank you, like thanks for listening, thanks for your trusts.   This big deal Thank you got me to thinking of what it means, the possible attitudes behind the words. And I don't like it too much, gotta say.

I think of how many times I got a Thank you card from my friendly car salesmen, insurance agents, brokers of sundry stripes. But these are all businesses, that is, money changes hands, and one side basically says thank you for making me and my family richer. (Except for the times when it seems to say now it's signed and sealed, you're fucked good.)

Now it is obviously naive to discount the glamours of high office, the egotistic gratification, hence how natural the publicly expressed gratitudes.   But it is a totally valid thing to hold onto certain high bar that says that public offices are there to serve us, the public, not to make money for the office holders or to make movie stars out of them.   In other words, to say to the candidate that thanks too hard, that your thanking us is not in line with what we have in mind for you, because it reeks of some thinking that you have skinned us in that deal.