No Worries

[Dave Wilton]

> It does indeed appear to be an Australianism. G.A. Wilkes, in
> the Dict. Australian Colloqualisms (3 edn.), has a citation
> for 'no worries' dated 1966; the Australian National
> Dictionary has one in 1969. I have found one, in the 'Barry
> McKenzie' cartoon strip - running in the UK satirical magazine
> Private Eye from 1963-74. Unfortunately my cite comes from a
> 'collected' version of the strip, so its precise date is hard
> to pin down but (based on the book's overall pagination) I
> would put it, again, around the mid-Sixties.

I would say that the phrase was popularized in the US by Australian comedian
Paul Hogan. He uses that phrase several times in his 1986 movie "Crocodile
Dundee."