Today's guest is Rosemary Harris, master gardener and the author of the Dirty Business Mystery series.
I have a problem with “no problem.” When did these two words become an appropriate response to everything from “my pasta is cold” to “you’ve canceled my flight and I’m stranded in Abu Dabi?”
Sometime in the last ten or so years, “no problem” has proliferated and replaced “I’m sorry” or the even more retro “Let me see what I can do.” I’d love to find a way to blame Disney for this – Hakuna Matata, anybody? But it may predate them. My husband claims it started in the Caribbean where for various, uh, botanical reasons, everything really was No Problem even if there was a problem
I suppose it’s better than “un-hunh” which was pervasive in NYC in the early nineties. I can only hope the rest of the country was spared . Few salespeople knew how close they came to bodily harm by saying “un-hunh” to me after I had been nice enough to thank them for taking my money.
I wouldn’t hate “no problem” so much if it didn’t pop up precisely when, THERE IS A PROBLEM. Can you imagine someone having said to Jim Lovell, “No problem!”
I’d love to continue this rant but I must go – I’m on hold with Cablevision, they’ve assured me that my call is very important to them…
And what's bugging you today?
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Rosemary Harris is president of Sisters in Crime New England Chapter and a board member of MWA-NY Chapter. Her first book, Pushing Up Daisies was a Mystery Guild selection and was named to Library Journal’s Best First Fiction List 2008. The Big Dirt Nap was released just this week by St. Martin’s Minotaur.
