No worries

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For other uses, see No worries (disambiguation).

A tire cover on the back of an SUV displays the slogan.
An Australian car displays "No worries"

No worries is an expression seen in

Australian culture. The phrase has been referred to as the national motto of Australia
.

The phrase has influenced a similar phrase used in the

2000 Sydney Olympics. It has also gained common usage in Canadian English.[1][2]

Definition

No worries is an Australian English and New Zealand English expression, meaning "do not worry about that",[3] or "that's all right".[4] It can also mean "sure thing"[5] and "you're welcome".[6] Other colloquial Australian terms which mean the same thing include "she'll be right".[7] The expression has been compared to the American English equivalent "no problem".[8] In their book Australian Language & Culture: No Worries!, authors Vanessa Battersby, Paul Smitz and Barry Blake note: "No worries is a popular Australian response akin to 'no problems', 'that's OK' or 'sure thing'."[9]

Cultural origins

Early documentation dates the phrase back to 1966.[10] According to author of When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures, Richard D. Lewis, the phrase is a form of expression of the relaxed attitude in Australian culture.[11] Anna 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".[12] She concludes that along with "good on you", the expressions reflect the "national character" and "prevailing ethos" of Australia.[13]

Usage

Wierzbicka writes in her book Cross-cultural Pragmatics that the expression "permeates Australian speech", "serves a wide range of illocutionary forces" and displays a "casual optimism".[14] In her 1992 book Semantics, Culture, and Cognition, Wierzbicka classifies the phrase as "among the most characteristic Australian expressions", along with "good on you".[12]

The term can also be used in the context of an apology.[15] The phrase has been used widely in British English since the late 1980s, a development partly attributed to the success of Australian soap operas such as Neighbours in the United Kingdom.[16]

The phrase "no wucking forries" has the same meaning in Australia; as a spoonerism of "no fucking worries",[3][17] and is contracted to the phrases "no wuckers" and "no wucks".[3]

Influence

No worries was referred to as "the national motto" of Australia in 1978,[12] and in their 2006 work, Diving the World, Beth and Shaun Tierney call "no worries, mate" the national motto of the country.[6] Writing in The New York Times Book Review, Annette Kobak calls the expression a "ritual incantation" which has "particular charm".[18] The phrase "no waris" in the Papua New Guinea language Tok Pisin is derived from the Australian English term.[19][20]

According to

2000 Sydney Olympics, have been put forth as theories explaining the pervasiveness of the expression in the United States.[23] Linguistics professor Kate Burridge writes in her 2004 book Weeds in the Garden of Words that expressions including "no worries", "absolutely", and "bottom line" have become less prevalent in favor of newer sayings.[24]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Tours, 2me (19 December 2016). "No Worries – you're welcome, eh :)". 2me Tours. Retrieved 29 April 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ "Commonly used Canadian-English Slang and Phrases" (PDF). UVic Global community.
  3. ^ a b c Partridge, Dalzell & Victor 2006, p. 1390
  4. ^ Stuart-Hamilton 2007, p. 161
  5. ^ Angelo & Butler 1998, p. 22
  6. ^ a b Tierney & Tierney 2006, p. 32
  7. ^ Nolan & Hinkelman 1996, p. 274
  8. ^ Morrison, Conaway & Borden 1994, p. 9
  9. ^ Battersby, Smitz & Blake 2007, p. 33
  10. ^ Hoffmann & Siebers 2009, p. 120
  11. ^ Lewis 2005, p. 209
  12. ^ a b c Wierzbicka 1992, p. 388
  13. ^ Moon 1998, p. 271
  14. ^ Wierzbicka 1991, p. 56
  15. ^ Bowe & Martin 2007, p. 56
  16. ^ "No worries infiltrates British English". National Nine News. news.ninemsn.com.au. Archived from the original on 3 October 2012. Retrieved 12 January 2011.
  17. ^ Goddard 2006, p. 72
  18. ^ New York Times staff 2001, p. 1499
  19. ^ Romaine 1991, p. 148
  20. ^ Biber & Finegan 1994, p. 63
  21. ^ Whiting, Frances (25 July 2004). "It's, like, out of control". The Sunday Mail. p. 018.
  22. ^ Harris, Samela (20 May 2004). "No worries, mate, she'll be right, and have a nice day". The Advertiser. p. 020.
  23. ^ a b McKenna, Michael (22 January 2003). "Crikey, strine takes over". The Courier-Mail. Queensland Newspapers. p. 3.
  24. ^ McGarry, Helen (12 September 2004). "Language – Books Extra". The Sun-Herald. p. 72.

References

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to No worries.
Look up no worries in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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