Help with grammar please!

[crisgal]

i am writing a programme for the school play. They want some special thanks to several people.
Can i put 'A special thank you to:' and then list different people? Or does the thank you have to be plural, because we're thanking more than one of them? Help!

[buttons77]

You could say that you would like to say a special thank you to each of the following, and then list all the people

[naomi24]

You can't pluralise 'thank you'. Think about it. Thank yous? Nah. :o)

Just one 'thank you' followed by your list of names is fine.

[naomi24]

Or you could just say 'With special thanks to .... list of names'.

[Buenchico]

As has been said, you can't make 'thank you' plural (since "you" can refer to either one person or a number of people anyway).

My own way of doing it would be to write: "Special thanks, for their help in our production, go to . . . "

[THECORBYLOON]

The word "thanks" can be singular so you can have a "thank" but I can't think on when it would be used. The word "thankyou" can have a plural so you could say, "Special thankyous to..." but you could just say, "A special thanks to..." the choice is yours.

[methyl]

As advised above "thank yous" is not correct in this context. The plural is on the number of thanks not the number of people receiving the thanks. e.g. "The Queen received many thank yous for her support of charities in 2010". Ro parody you sentence is would become "Many thank yous to:" ... which looks awful in modern English.

Strictly speaking the names following the colon should be delimited with a semi-colon and then a full-stop after the last name.

A special thank you to: Name1; Name2; Name3; Name4.

It is so important that you get the names right and avoid nicknames unless the person is happy with every parent and pupil using that nickname for evermore.
Be consistent. If one person is "Mr J. Bloggs", then "Amelia (Smelly) Chemyteacher" would be better thanked as "Ms A. Chemyteacher (fireworks advisor)".

Personally I would thank everybody who has helped, then mention the most helpful and why.

A big thank you all those who worked so hard to make this production a success. A special thank you to: Mrs N. Lawson (catering); Mr A. Ayckbourne (script advisor); Mr S. Spielberg (special effects); Mr G. Fawkes (advisor to Mr S. Spielberg); Mr. F. Sam (special effects safety advisor); Mrs M. Mopp (cleaning services).

[rojash]

There is a noun form which is normally expressed as thankyou or thank-you. The fact that you are using it as a noun (and you must be, as you have preceded it with the indefinite article: "a"), means:
a) You should have written "a special thankyou" or "a special thank-you", and
b) you can pluralise it: "I would like to say special thankyous to..."

Having said that, I agree with the others that there are better ways of phrasing it.

[rojash]

Here's a reference: http://tinyurl.com/32kd6g8

[DTCwordfan]

"Thanks to you all. You know who you are, but notwithstanding, I would like to single out Joe, Chris, the HM and x, y and z, for special thanks for being (complete wallahs/divine Gods, whatever - fill in as aprops)."