A list of "banished words", published annually by Michigan's Lake Superior State University, has this year included the unmistakably Australian, "no worries". The tongue-in-cheek list has been compiled every year since 1976 from submissions on terms deemed "familiar but problematic". This year's list alsoincludes "asking for a friend", "circle back" and "wait, what?" for elimination. The first use of "no worries" goes back to a 1965 edition of Sydney's Oz magazine, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The expression probably received a boost in popularity from Australian cultural exports such as Crocodile Dundee, which Webb says contains six instances, as well as the Sydney Olympics and Steve Irwin. "'No worries' is a victim of its own success, and has since become naturalised in America, that is, stripped of specific Australian connotations." The phrase's popularity started to ramp up in the 90s and Aussie stars like Margot Robbie, Rebel Wilson and the Hemsworths helped it along. In the UK, decades of Neighbours have helped it along.
Holders of lottery tickets are reluctant to trade them in for different tickets, even though they know that all tickets are equally likely to win. Why? Possibly it's because of "anticipated regret" — I'll feel like a fool if I discover I've traded away a winning ticket; I'd rather hold on to my ticket even if it means that my inaction costs me a fortune. But in a series of experiments in 2007, Cornell psychologists found that people have a gut feeling that an exchanged lottery ticket is more likely to win than an unexchanged one, and are even willing to back up that belief with cash. We seem to find it easy to imagine that possibility, and that ease makes that outcome seem more likely. We also think we're more likely to be pulled over by police when we've borrowed a car without permission, and we think we're more likely to be called on in class when we haven't done the reading. For similar reasons, people are reluctant to switch checkout lanes at the grocery store or to change answers on a multiple-choice test.
Godly faux pas
Mychelle Mihailof writes: "My son, Daniel was 6 (he's now 34) and wanted to try out the Sunday School at the little church opposite our place. He came home saying we should, "Lavalore". This went on for a few weeks until we worked out he was saying, "Love the Lord"!
