>>>>>>>>>>>My son-in-law has an expression (which he either invented or picked up somewhere, but I like it all the same): chillax.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>I don't think he invented it, more likely it was on TV. I was told to "chillax" by a nine year old girl a few weeks ago. She told me it meant chill/relax, but couldn't recall where she first heard it.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Duh-UH! Next you'll be telling us the etymology of "smog".
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Gosh, could it be smoke and fog? Hmmm...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I think I was more making a statement that it's been around and had a cute story about hearing it lately.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Chillax man... <g>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>OK, if you stop acting like a prunt :-)
>>>>>
>>>>>Hmmm... Prune/Runt? Prude/Punter? Or worse?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Ooooh worse! Cross-gender worse! :-)
>>>
>>>Got it. Wow! You Brits aren't near as conservative as we've been led to believe!
>>
>>It's only your media that portray as such - not we.
>>
>>I have to cringe when I see an American pretending to be "Briddish" BTW. They always give themselves away by the pronunciation of the long "a", as in "can't". We pronounce it as in "car" but hams pronounces it as just elongating the usual "a".
>>
>>Airnd thee oewvah preeciisseness and crispness of pronunciation.
>>
>>OTOH I can't stand Brit actors over there who have prostituted their words for the US audience. eg David McCallum (he'll always be Ilya Kuriakin to me) in NCIS might say "IN-qu'ry" instead of "in-QUIREry".
>
>Except, of course, for Hugh Laurie who is so good at it that I wouldn't be surprised to learn many people in the U.S. think he's an American. I imagine a lot of people would go into shock if they saw him in Blackadder.

I tried out once asking on the UT what part of the US "House" came from and was surprised to find that most people knew him well from, predominantly, Blackadder, but also from Jeeves and Wooster (with Stephen Fry). Many might also have seen him in various Brit films, such as "Maybe Baby", "Girl form Rio", "Peter's Friends". However, if people have only seen him in "Stuart Little" (1 & 2) then they could be forgiven for mistaking him for a ham. BTW, his acting has improved manyfold since some of those filems.