Usage
Anna Wierzbicka writes in her 1991 book Cross-cultural Pragmatics that the expression "permeates Australian speech", "serves a wide range of illocutionary forces" and displays a "casual optimism". In her 1992 book Semantics, Culture, and Cognition, Wierzbicka classifies the phrase as "among the most characteristic Australian expressions", along with "good on you". Wierzbicka comments that the expression illustrates important parts of Australian culture, including: "amiability, friendliness, an expectation of shared attitudes (a proneness to easy 'mateship'), jocular toughness, good humour, and, above all, casual optimism". She concludes that along with "good on you", the expressions reflect the "national character" and "prevailing ethos" of Australia. Richard D. Lewis writes in his 2005 book When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures that the phrase is a form of expression of the laissez-faire attitude in Australian culture. The term can also be used in the context of an apology. The phrase "no wucking furries" has the same meaning in Australia; as a spoonerism of "no fucking worries", and is contracted to the phrases "no wuckers" and "no wucks". The phrase is now also widely used in British English, with usage increasing from the early 1990s onwards, around the same time that popular Australian soap operas such as Neighbours and Home and Away, other Australian dramas and children's TV programmes like The Tribe, Round the Twist, Blue Heelers and Prisoner: Cell Block H began to dominate UK television.
Read more about this topic: No Worries
Famous quotes containing the word usage:
“Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don’t are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn’t put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)
“...Often the accurate answer to a usage question begins, “It depends.” And what it depends on most often is where you are, who you are, who your listeners or readers are, and what your purpose in speaking or writing is.”
—Kenneth G. Wilson (b. 1923)
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)