~ No worries, mate. ~

I am Italian. Italians don’t learn English at school. It is simply not achievable, inside “The Boot”.

For this reason during the lovely summer of 2005, when I was on my late 16, I set my sails towards Australia for a journey a couple of months long.

The “Great Expectations” posed by my family were many:

– Go and learn this bloody English! You don’t wanna be left behind in these modern times! (suggested by mom)

– Go and learn how to wash your own dirty underwear!! Too easy with your grandma doing it all the time! (suggested by mom again)

– Learn how to iron and you’ll be a good boy. (suggested by grandma)

– Payout this investment! Go and try to make some business! (of course suggested by dad)

Well the list would be longer, but anyways that’s how a boy from a tiny village of the Pianura Padana left his Mother Country to find himself 15.000 km further away, Downundah.

A thrilling experience, one of the most compelling times I have ever had.

I know. I should tell you of Roberto and the amazing first days in Sydney. I should tell you of that time, when we were playing cards (Italian “Briscola”) and we ended up right in the middle of Lleyton Hewitt’s (tennis player) wedding. I should tell you of the time we rent a fishing boat and tried (disastrously) to conquer the open sea. And most certainly I should tell you of how we survived 7 days in Northern Queensland with 5$ (real-deal aussie dollars, no fancy u.s. stuff!).

But that’s not the point, now.

What I wanted to say is that in 3 months I made my way through Australia. And I got familiar with the Aussie accent. So familiar that the very first time I met an American (girl, blonde, wearing NYU sweater, saying Oh-my-God every 3 words) it took me 5 minutes to understand the word “wicked”. And I am still not sure of what she meant with that.

At that time, if my efforts with the Yankees seemed helpless, the ones with the Brits were even worse.

So basically Australian was the only form of English I had a smattering of.

Unfortunately years passed by and the arrogance of the ubiquitous American accent slowly wiped out my Australian slang reminiscences. Nevertheless I am proud to say that I still carry few tiny bits of this “Red Heart” Heritage with me.

That’s the case of “No worries, mate”.

– Hey man, can I have your lecture notes, just need a couple of pages… (guy who for sure will photocopy the whole thing)

– No worries, mate.

– Oh, sorry, I just spilled my strawberry-banana smoothie on you!

– No worries.

– Could you do me a huge favor…? (very lousy, unpleasant, inappropriate, revolting one)

– Hummmm… Sure, no worries!

That’s it.
No freaking “Cool, man” or “You are welcome”. Neither “That’s ok”, nor “Brilliant, thanks”.

They just don’t sound natural to me. They sound weird… like Hey buddy? Or like I’m-from-the-U-KAAY-and-that-is-lovely .

“No worries.” It just feels right.

Filippo