"You're in our thoughts and prayers"

February 16, 2009 8:05 AM

When did "thoughts and prayers" become such a commonplace expression of sympathy?

The phrase seems to be almost ubiquitous now, and I honestly don't remember reading it so frequently before (by that, I mean in the 70s - 80's -early 90s). Were there other common phrases that people used to express sympathy in the past - or is it a simple case of me just not noticing because I was younger?

It seems that I first started noticing it in association with auto racing, but I doubt that's the origin. I tried looking up older newspaper articles that might contain similar sentiments, but I just wasn't finding "thoughts and prayers."

I assume it's unique to the States, with a little bit of bleed-over to the UK, but I'm not sure of that, either.

posted by HopperFan to writing & language (11 comments total)

Are you seeing this in emails, perhaps? That might skew the numbers.
posted by phunniemee at 8:12 AM on February 16

I have no solid data on this, but it wouldn't surprise me if the phrase emerged as a politically-correct update to simply saying something along the lines of "Our prayers are with them," recognizing that not everyone prays, etc. As such, I'd put its origin in the latter part of the 20th century.

Unfortunately, the phrase is sufficiently generic that I doubt you're going to be able to do any serious research into its origins. I suspect it "emerged" in numerous places without any connection between them.
posted by valkyryn at 8:24 AM on February 16

I'm thinking that you didn't notice because you were younger. Kids don't have much reason to think about polite verbiage to acknowledge others' losses.

But the idea of "being in one's thoughts" goes way back. (I don't have access to an appropriate reference tome...anyone?)

Thinking about someone and praying for them can be two different things (depending on your religious traditions) so I don't think it's political correctness that adds thoughts to prayers when expressing sympathy. If you wanted to be politically correct, you'd express the thoughts and not the prayers.
posted by desuetude at 8:39 AM on February 16

It's fairly common in books printed before 1900, though not necessarily in the context of sympathy. Google Books

A book from 1821 has this: Masters and seamen, as you are about to leave us for the season, I trust we shall follow you in our thoughts and prayers.

And this is from a letter of condolence to a mother who's son has died printed in a book from 1877:

I wish it were in my power to do something for you. I had hoped to have you with us at our holiday season, but your great affliction prevented my sending for you. You are continually in our thoughts and prayers. How sad the days must have been to you. When the year rolls round I hope you may feel like coming to us, and letting us try to comfort you more than we can by letter.
posted by interplanetjanet at 8:42 AM on February 16

I think it's since people don't have the time [or interest ?] to visit or call to express sympathy personally. This way they can appear more empathetic than they really are...without going too much out of their way or having to invest too much emotional energy.

It's a lot warmer expression than "yours truly" or "sincerely".
posted by AuntieRuth at 10:03 AM on February 16

like valkyryn, I'm going to venture a guess that "you're in our prayers" may have been the original expression, but this was amended to ""thoughts and prayers" at some point to acknowledge that hey, not everybody believes in prayer. Maybe around the same time that a "moment of prayer" became a "moment of silence" - I think the first time I heard this was during the first Gulf War.
posted by chez shoes at 10:10 AM on February 16

I think that adding "thoughts" to "prayers" conveys a bit more meaning as well. It says that you are thinking about the person and their pain more often than simply saying a prayer at bedtime or on Sunday. Were I the aggrieved party, I'd feel more comforted by the fact that someone was thinking about me in my time of need. Maybe they think of ways to improve their own relationships with others, maybe they consider being nicer people in general, maybe they remember good times spent together.

As well, a "moment of silence" is more powerful to me. I'm pretty much an atheist/agnostic, so if I am requested to pray, I'll either mindlessly recite something from Sunday school or stew about being requested to pray. But *silence* connotes a time to simply ponder the loss.

Perhaps this reflects a cynicism on my part- to me, saying a prayer or praying is a more self-centered act. Not meaning selfish, but simply that prayer is usually thought of as either a sort of meditation, or a conversation with god. Whereas "thought" and "silence" is devoting ones mental efforts toward another.
posted by gjc at 10:27 AM on February 16

Well, the question wasn't how the phrase developed. It's pretty easy to find it in use as early as the 19th century. Are "thoughts" and "prayers" the same thing? Not exactly, but many idioms have some redundancy to them.

I agree it wasn't as ubiquitous a generation ago. It's very dangerous to analyze such things using Google Books or Google News, since the sample obviously declines in size as you go backwards in time, but I do detect an uptick in the 1980s. I'm going to hazard a guess that the phrase may have become more popular due to Ronald Reagan using it in several official statements (corroborated by private correspondence).

One can find them in close conjunction as early as FDR or as last as Nixon. Nixon, Ford, and Carter used it as a stock phrase (at some level representing a decline in the quality of WH rhetoric). But Reagan really used it a lot.

Obviously pinning it on one person in particular is sketchy and the sources are not statistically valid, but I have a hunch this is a key reason the phrase suddenly becomes more widely used. Similarly to the way the flag is now a required icon in some contexts, American life used to be a bit more secular, and these overt religious displays were less common.
posted by dhartung at 11:20 PM on February 16

dhartung is right about it increasing in the 1980s (at least on Google News) and maybe from Reagan using it.

I can find a number of sort of "official prayers" from World War II that use it, so I wonder if that might have influenced Reagan' use. A few examples.

FDR's D-Day prayer: http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/04DD010.HTML

George VI's cable to FDR after Pearl Harbor http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=NKkLAAAAIBAJ&sjid=J1UDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2777,2112625&dq=thoughts-and-prayers

It was also used in George VI's 1944 Christmas message though I can't find a good link.

These are the sort of things people would have listened to on the radio at the time and would have made an impression.

It would be nice if Google News would list exactly which newspapers it covers for which years so you could get an idea of sample size.
posted by interplanetjanet at 9:50 AM on February 17

It would be nice if Google News would list exactly which newspapers it covers for which years so you could get an idea of sample size.

Agreed. I suspect that the age of the papers available through online searching are contributing to the seeming uptick of this phrase in the 80.
posted by desuetude at 11:24 AM on February 17

"You're in my prayers" shows up on every dang sympathy card they hand me to sign at work. I'd say 80% of the signers have written this. As someone who doesn't particularly want to say it (I'm sorry for them, but it's not like I pray about people I don't interact with much's dead relatives I never met), I feel conspicuously mean NOT writing it.

So I guess it is common.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:36 PM on February 17