It’s always hard to know what to say when someone reviews your book positively. (When someone is negative, of course, one knows exactly what to say, and where to find decent-sized rocks to throw or flesh-eating fire ants to put in their linens. Er… or is that just me?)

When someone’s nice, though, there’s a thing. At least, I think there’s a thing. And the thing is: it’s weird to say “thank you”. There’s sort of a duff note. “Thank you” is what you say to someone who has done something for you, and a reviewer hasn’t. Or shouldn’t have. A reviewer has, at least notionally, expressed an unvarnished opinion. They’ve read your book and written about what they found there. In theory, someone who absolutely hates the ground on which you walk should produce a review every bit as nice as someone who thinks you personally are a ray of sunshine in a dark and fretful world.

And from this, because I am among other things a neurotic lunatic, I derive the notion that it is faintly offensive to thank someone for a positive review. It feels as if you are implying that they are not a good reviewer. You are suggesting that they didn’t call it as they saw it, that you somehow own part of them or that they now feel you owe them one.
Yes, I know. It’s hogwash. But there’s a happy ending…

In some language, there is no doubt a word used to denote appreciation of a thing done without bias which is beneficial to the person expressing that appreciation, not implying any form of exchange which might diminish the act itself. It may even exist in English – I just don’t know what it is.

Glancing at my thesaurus, I found “gramercy” which is used to express both gratitude and surprise. Since it’s also a corking word not much used, I think it could be time to find it a new place in the world. Thus:

Gramercy, Jonathan Messinger!

Or: Gramercy, Nancy Pearl!

[Addendum: I have to add here that I first had this whole internal gramercy-ing discussion because of Nancy, but when I wrote this I couldn't find her review in text form, so being as I am a huge tart, I shifted my attentions to Jonathan for the purpose of neologising, if that's what I'm doing by re-inventing an old term, so I should perhaps called it neo-archeologising or something... anyway... oh, dear... where was I?]