America’s Slippery Slope Into Britishisms

[Skarbrowe]

8. "No worries" was the first non-American English I noticed.

That was several years ago, and I was really surprised. I watched a lot of Australian movies and it, to me, was Americans picking up Australian wordings. I never heard "no problem" again. Then I started hearing "one off", "full stop" and I do remember hearing "brilliant", but it always seem to fit. I must have really had that one sink into my speech patterns. I consider myself an Anglophile and I can do a passable English accent. Where I live now, they speak about twenty different languages and though I haven't picked up the words so much, I will affect a Latino all the way through to a Russian accent depending on how much time I spend with a person. I absolutely love accents and I do them all the time around a close friend. I don't want people to think I am being disrespectful. Scottish is my best, Irish, eh..German is very easy for me and so is Russian for some reason. They are "hard" sounding accents, like English and it's child, American.

Oops, went off topic there a bit. Oh, that's another British word usage I have picked up - using the word "bit" instead of lots or parts. For some reason, I never use "loo". Where is it that they say "water closet". Ha! I still say the prudish restroom or washroom. I won't even use the word "bathroom" because I find that too personal. Oh god. Yeah, I just love all languages and the more we drop in words to the American way of speaking the closer we get to understanding other languages that we will never know completely. Nipping at the Tower of Babel.