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I remember when the phrase "at the end of the day"--meaning "in the final analysis", or "when you get down to it"--was a distinctly British phrase. If you heard it being used by someone, they were either British, or they'd picked it up there.

Sometime in the last decade or two, it crossed the Atlantic, and now it's not much of a marker at all, as I hear it in general use in the States.

Anyone else have this memory? Or have a more exact idea of when it might have happened?

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Intriguing. I have always used that phrase, but picked it up from the dang brits in my youth. Never really noticed it wasn't used here.

I know it was still pretty British in 2001, when I was over there for a conference. (And a presenter said it about every 38 seconds.)

I had picked it up by the mid-90s, long before I was being exposed to Britishisms with any regularity.
I know this, because I worked for a startup, and would often respond to it by saying "Yeah, well, at the end of the day it's often tomorrow morning." (By which I meant, the final-analysis consequences of doing X might not be the most important factor.)

Oh, is that what "At the end of the day" meant in Les Miz? :-)

Hah! So the funny thing is, I saw it in some West End theatre sometime fairly early in its run. I remember going with a bunch of schoolmates after one of us scored cut-price student tickets at the box office the afternoon of the performance.

I didn't like the show much, so it didn't make much impression on me, except in the "Well, that was overblown and hardly worth the few quid we spent."* I don't even remember that phrase being used in the show. (Then again, the only thing I remember is that annoying bit of repeated melody which I now have stuck in my head again as an earworm. Thanks.)

That, and the fact that I'd heard the phrase a fair bit in the UK in general already meant that it surprises me that enough Americans would have been influenced just by that in order to start using the phrase in normal conversation.

But it's as reasonable an explanation as I've heard so far; if you'd never heard the phrase before I can imagine that might go some significant way to putting it in your head.

*It could have been worse.

bedfull_o_books says that her mom burst out laughing at various bits of the show which were particularly over the top.

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See comment to

happyfunpaul, above.

I can remember using it over 15 years ago - so maybe its a regional thing as well?

Interesting. I was never aware of this as a Britishism-- I can't remember a time before I was familiar with this usage. (Obviously, there was such a time, I'm just not aware of it.)

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Yup, see reply to

happyfunpaul, above.

Now the main theme is stuck in my head. Urgle. :)

I didn't know it was a British thing before, I just noticed that suddenly I was hearing it everywhere, to the point of annoyance.

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