Right, once and for all, how do you write it? I always thought that running the two words together was wrong, and that it ought to be "thank you".

I've just had to read a book called "The Sea House" for my reading group, and the entire book was littered with "thankyou"s, and it set my teeth on edge. However I'm sure the good people at Penguin were unlikely to make a mistake, so now I'm confused.

Please help me out before I slag it off at the book group this afternoon and make a fool out of myself.

It's definitely "thank you".

That's it then, I'm writing to Penguin to complain.

If you're just thanking someone, then it's "thank you", but if you're taking the thanking as a noun, then I think it's okay to use a "thankyou". Why anyone should want to do that is a different matter entirely, though (having written that, the Oxford Guide to English Usage says the noun is "thank-you", and that you should definitely never use "thankyou", so get writing.)

I'm sure they'll thankyou for it.

ABBA / Scaffold earworm crossover.

Yes, I was about to say what boris just said.

You thank someone by saying "thank you".

By doing this, you are issuing a "thank-you".

"Thankyou" is just bad English.

It's probably more American cuntery.

Taylor wrote:

QUOTE:
Yes, I was about to say what boris just said.

You thank someone by saying "thank you".

By doing this, you are issuing a "thank-you".

"Thankyou" is just bad English.

Shall we return to this to-morrow?

The author, Esther Freud, is Sigmund's great-granddaughter. She's also not American.

I have fallen into the trap of saying pls and thx in emails (without hyphens) these days. I actually think these contractions are rather aces...

Femme Folle wrote:

QUOTE:
It's probably more American cuntery.

More your line of cuntery than ours, certainly.

Oh and I like thankyou and use it often, incorrect though it may be. But I hate 'alright' and 'anymore' (both US usage I believe?) so I don't know what that's about, really.

I don't see any problem with "alright" and "anymore" - nothing looks right in place of the first, and the latter means something slightly different from "any more".

"thankyou" jars a little, but I use it. The people I use it to are, more or less, all and only the ones I'd put an x at the end of a text message to.

When I was in school, we were taught that there was no such word as "alright." I guess that wasn't a common lesson or one that stuck.

But I've said it before and I'll say it again: there's also no such verb as "orientate."

Heliotrope wrote:

QUOTE:
When I was in school, we were taught that there was no such word as "alright." I guess that wasn't a common lesson or one that stuck.

But I've said it before and I'll say it again: there's also no such verb as "orientate."

I'm with Heliotrope on the first: "alright" just says "illiterate" to me. It's the way I was brung up. And what does "anymore" mean that "any more" doesn't? The fellow is talking through his hat.

But "orientate" is just British English. You have to allow us our own cuntery.