The original truism is mine, West Coast, and I may be dumb, but I ain't dumb enough to try to back that one up with actual evidence. Just repeating bits of conversation I had recently with a chap down at the local RAF base. In any case, I'm sure there's some sort of philosophical HLA or QSTAG or whatnot. If not, there's got to be a good joke based on one, complete with classic caricatures of Americans and those foreigners who think English is their mother tongue.