Wordwatch: Don’t mention it

Covid has generated many new ways in which we interact with our fellows. One of the most universal is the polite avoidance of each other when meeting in a constricted space. Such a gesture is, in my mind, acknowledged by a smile or brief “thanks.”

But my experience has been that most people take the act of standing aside for them entirely for granted. Do they think that because the avoidance is, as it were, mandatory, there’s no need to notice it at all?

What I notice is that I have become sensitive to the way other people behave, in a way that I never used to be. Walking along a pavement, we do not, as a rule, take much notice of what other people are doing (as long as they don’t actually push us over). The pandemic seems to have made me more observant, and at the same time less tolerant: I have an excuse to be annoyed with my fellow human beings – how inconsiderate of them not to take my vulnerability into account!

So I have had recourse to a phrase that I realise has an old-fashioned ring to it: “Don’t mention it”. In the past, that always meant I had done someone a small favour and been thanked for it. My reply  “Don’t mention it,” in true British fashion, deflected any credit I might seem to be getting.  And if I stood aside for anyone now in the days of the pandemic, and they thanked me, I might say “Don’t mention it.” But if they do not thank me or even notice my presence, “Don’t mention it” becomes heavily ironic. And that irony is the only pleasure I gain from the encounter.

I run the risk of annoying the person concerned, if they understand what I am saying. But I have a feeling that the phrase is so out-of-date that it merely strikes the hearer’s ear as quaint or incomprehensible. Sometimes I utter it sotto voce, between gritted teeth, and the chances are it will not be heard at all.

It is a phrase that can do the same job as “Not at all”, but that too is becoming rare. I remember my first visit to the United States in 1968, and being bowled over by a shop assistant responding to my thanks with “You’re very welcome.”  I’d expected “Not at all” or something similar, and had never heard the expression before, in that context. It struck me as magically warm and friendly, an example of the way Americans were nicer people than we Brits, less formal, less stiff.

It took a while, but before long “You’re very welcome” became a standard British expression too. It has become so familiar that it has lost all connotations of warmth and charm, and is merely a hackneyed tag, as formal as “Not at all” used to be.

But I am already out of date. The most likely response to a word of thanks now is “No worries.” This certainly comes from abroad – Australia to be precise. I find it hard to imagine the phrase except in a ‘Aussie’ accent.  And the phrase is already naturalised and most people using it will imagine (if they pause to consider it at all) that it has been a traditional expression in Britain for centuries.

Whatever phrase we use to express our thanks, let’s hope our good humour and courtesy remain alive and well. I’m sure I don’t set a very good example.