Why do some people in England say "Ta" when they mean "thank you"?

Answer 1

It's a slang word for "thanks"
The word is a result of the heavy Danish influence on the English language.
The Danish word for "thanks" is "tak". In Scotland and upper England it was common to drop the "k" at the end because of the way words were pronounced during the time of old English and Middle English. Hence the slang word "Ta" which should actually be pronounced "TA-k" but over time became "Ta" is really Tak meaning "Thanks".

Answer 2

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Ta is actually from northern England. I don't think it would be defined as slang, more as dialect. It's particularly common in Yorkshire and Lancashire, alongside words like "nowt" which means "nothing", "thee" meaning "you", and "owt" meaning "anything".

Answer 3

It is not unique to people in England. Here in New Zealand it is a very common word. It is simply an informal version of thankyou. It would not be used in writing a letter (although it is common in text messaging as it is shorter and easier to type) but would be used among people you know, or where the conversation is informal.

Answer 4

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RE:
Why do some people in England say "Ta" when they mean "thank you"?

Answer 5

It's used frequently in North Britain (Scotland and Northern England). I've seen Chris' answer above here and on Urban Dictionary, claiming it to be a shortened version of the Danish "Tak," which, I believe is incorrect.

Seeing as it's used here in Scotland, I presumed it is an abbreviated form of the Gaelic "Tapadh leat," which is the informal way of saying thanks. The formal is "Tapadh leibh," (pr: "Tapa lev") or many thanks/big thanks, "Taing mhór" or "Móran taing." This word has it's origins in Old Irish, clever, active, so Irish, Early Irish tapad, suddenness, alertness, so the Gaelic way of saying thanks is literally translated to "you are clever/alert/handy."

According to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary), the origin of "thanks" is the Old English "thancas," plural of "thank" (kindly) thought, gratitude, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch "dank" and German "Dank."

Answer 6

It's an abbreviated form of "Ta-Ta" which can mean anything from thank you to goodbye, and a few other things in between! It's just an adapted "slang" expression also easy for children to say when learning the language.

I would compare this to several English words gone short... such as "hey" used to mean many different things, but a shortened version of hey there, hello, stop that, and so on!!

Hope this helped :)

Answer 7

Same reason why people say "Mercie" In france as it means thank you

Answer 8

We had an exchange student from Australia who used to say that, too.

Answer 9

Ta is baby language meaning thank you

Answer 10

Maybe it's from old cockney???