I was always homesick for Australia when I lived in America. I didn’t just miss family and friends, I also missed Australian flora and fauna, footy, cricket, lamingtons, bad service at restaurants, and road rage without guns. So I decided that the best way to stay connected to home was to resolutely maintain my Australian accent, even when the people around me had no idea of what I was saying, and also to never, ever use Americanisms in my day-to-day speech. And when I say “Americanisms”, not only did I avoid widely used American words and phrases, the worst of which I’ll list later, but I also avoided their interjections – like “uh huh” and “mm-hmm.” Those things are addictive, and I didn’t want to go near them.