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"Dead simple" it a common and pretty old (60's/70's?) term originating from North of the UK. There's probably a Brit there with an infectious turn of phrase. When I'm working with people in the US for an extended length of time, they inherit a LOT of my colloquialisms.

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It's a rather old term, even in the US, going back to the 1940s, at least in print. The example I linked to last time was a Time magazine book review from 1942 or something like that). It's really fun to investigate stuff like this using Google News' archive search :)

It's clear that usage has really taken off recently, although it is possible it may have peaked in 2008.

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?pz=1&cf=all&ned...

You should make up some random UK colloquialisms, and find the most outlandish one you can get them to adopt.

I think that would quickly turn into a real oyster carnival.

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