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

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=us&hl=en&q=%22dead+simple%22&cf=all http://news.google.com/archivesearch?pz=1&cf=all&ned...