About 11 hours into the Stone Mill trail run last Saturday comrade Stephanie Fonda quotes a colleague who spent time in Australia and who described to her a rank-ordering of Australian greetings. "No worries, mate" means all's well; "Good on ya" is OK; "Big worries" suggests trouble looms. The Wikipedia article titled "No worries" leads to a delightfully apropos summary of the archetypal Australian style by Anna Wierzbicka, Polish-Australian linguist:

... amiability, friendliness, an expectation of shared attitudes (a proneness to easy 'mateship'), jocular toughness, good humour, and, above all, casual optimism ...

... all of which are perfect traits for success in ultramarathoning — as well as everywhere else in life!

(cf. HowDoYouDo (2005-10-18), ...) - ^z - 2012-11-24