> "Poor sod"? Where did you pick that one up, Sam? Because you just managed to sound like a bloke in the pub bemoaning an old friend over a pint in the King's Head in Islington, not like Sam Stoddard from NH.

Sam lived in England for awhile, which could account for it. But even if that weren't the case, some well-read people just tend to pick up knowledge of colloquialisms from other cultures.

In other cases, those foreign cultures just impose their colloquialisms wherever they go, like we Southerners are doing with "y'all". :-)

Iss "it beats 'youse'" achar