The British Slang Thread.....

Hi Tim

You have the term "bum". Over here thats a slang word for "ass" as in she has a nice.........!

Prosperity!

Samsmiles

Some less offensive ones Tim. All basically mean the same, daft, idiot wally, plonker- all interchangeable.

twonk, twit, eejit, plank, prat, pillock, barmpot, dimwit, nitwit

There are a lot more more offensive ones, but I'll leave that for others to post.

Peter

Another fave of mine is numpty

daft is when your being silly

what about tosspot

As a nurse of 30 years standing I have a heap of the sort to make Pete Bestel go pale, best not use them in a public place, I might get banned lol

Kim

This should keep you going for an hour or two.

Dictionary of English slang and colloquialisms of the UK

The Brits usually just nick Irish slang and pretend it's theirs but here's one they (probably) came up with by themselves:



Translation: I'm a very pleasant articulate fellow.

There's definitely a market for it. Was it Coca-Cola who had to scrap a $25 million foreign advertising campaign because of a particular word they used that happened to cause great offence?

Cmon Neil - tell us what those mean

Airdrie Alberta Canada - or somewhere else lol.
My parents and sister live there

pissed:
US= angry
UK=drunk

For some odd reason we use the word 'piss' in various ways.

pissed (drunk)
pissed off (fed up/angry/annoyed)
going on the piss (night on the town)
taking the piss (taking the mickey/michael; being facetious; having a joke at someone elses expense; making fun of; being snide etc)
pissing it down (raining heavily)
pissed as a newt/fart (drunk)

mmm what else...

gobsmacked (stunned/amazed)
gobshite (mouthy person)
butchers - as in "have a butchers at that" or "lets' have a butchers" (to look at something, derives from 'butchers hook' but the last word is always left off rhyming slang. Mainly South England though it seems to be in use up North too.)
barney (to have a row or heated disagreement. Seems to derive from 'barney rubble' so could be used for "trouble", though I've never heard it used in that sense.)
jacksy (alone; on ones own as in "I'm on my jacksy" or I'm going on my Jacks". Think it's from Jack Jones the American singer.)
shanksy's pony (walking; on foot. "I'm going by..." or "I'm using shanksy's pony". You don't hear this much nowadays)
gone for a burton (to disappear; no longer around; don't know whether it is linked to Burtons mens clothing store that might have gone bankrupt, or Richard Burton doing a runner at some point, or some equally obsure source.)
mither (my-ther: means to hassle; harrass; bugging someone, kinda thing. "Stop mithering me". Mainly Northern England)

All I can think of for the moment.

Actually I was just kidding about writing the report. Funny someone actually took the time to do it.

It is like we speak different languages sometimes although we all started from the same one.

Another one in common usage: porkies=lies (derives from 'pork pies')

None of you mention 'bloody' - is it de rigeur or something, Yo?

i love it, just bloody well love it.

wot?

Slán agus Beannacht (in Ghilege)

Mention someones 'Fanny' in the UK and you might not get the reaction you expected

I don't want to know - but now i know - thanks Bev


blimey! there is another classic. bloke. (ok i watch too many old movies...)

Oh my god I love this thread. I am from Scotland and some of the words we use amaze even me haha. My boyfried moved up from London a few years ago and some one called him a loon, which up here can mean a boy/man, he took it as someone was calling him a nut case!!!
Anoher one used up here in the north of Scotland is 'foos yer doos?' I dont use this personally, it is more used by the old farmers, but it means 'how's your pigeons?' I still have no idea why you would ask anyone how their pigeons are!!!!

I am sure there are loads more but a lot of them tend to be pretty offensive, what a lovely bunch we are:-)

Jacqui x

I heard this from a ladie from the UK I used to date, but someow I never can remember it right...
it's either drop a penny or is it leave a penny?

Phnx:"Shag is not a dance over here either, but if you are a fan of the Austin Power movies you probably figured that one already. "

Shag is a dance here but it also has the same meaning as in Austin Powers.It also is a name for a regional tpe of music.

Pete, you're right...like I said, I never can remember it correctly.

Here is a couple of Cumbrian one's,

Divn't dee that yer divvy!

translation:

don't do that you idiot

Horney ( it's not what you think)

Translation :
Policeman/woman

Sometimes whenyer git caught playin' hikey dikey, ole gadgees'll git the 'orneys.

some times when playing hikey dikey the old people call the police.

hikey dikey: a game where the aim is to jump over as many different peoples garden fences in a row before you get caught.

Here one that still gives me a giggle/chuckle more for us Brits.

my inlaws are American and my father in law is always

"laughing his fanny off"

My roommate is from "across the pond" and when ever he feels under the weather he says he feeling a little "dodgy".

Pikey .... Irish Traveler

Grut Wazzuck .... big fool

Lummox ..... clumsy person

Grut Lummox .... large clumsy person

For some reason I have always thought a fortnight was 2 weeks

There is a 'white sauce' but that is different from improper gravy.

White sauce is thinner than gravy. Actually I am no expert on gravy - it is more something they use a lot in the South US, for instance on bisquits and just about everything else.

In the North, it would usually only be PROPER = whenever a roast beef, turkey or chicken, etc., is roasted, then the drippings would be used to build a gravy PROPERLY.

Actually some totally improper Italians in the East call spaghetti sauce 'gravy' - it is like a meat sauce. I think it is not only improper but totally disrespectful to call spaghetti sauce gravy. lol. i'm serious.

Paul, here in the states fat as in good is phat,which one of my daughters also says stands for Pretty Hot And Tasty.
Phnx.... gravy is very subjective here. Until I moved into the "capital of the south" I thought gravy was made from the drippings of the meat that was cooking with flour or starch added. Here in the south there is white gravy which from my experience, is more peppery adn has a tendency to have things added to it like sausage(bangers in the UK?) and poured over bisquits.

I just knew you were going to scream conspiracy about bisquits because you call bisquits what we call cookies.

Blah gravy and cookies, no. definitely.

Bisquits are not pudding either.

I guess you could say bisquits or biscuits are close to ummmm, do you have muffins? popovers? maybe close to a scone? Dinner rolls?

They would normally be like little breads - that is little individual thingies made from flour, water or milk and leavening and baked - then either split and buttered, and held in the hand - or laid in the plate with gravy on them and eaten with a fork.

Also, if you drop the biscuit batter in a stew or soup to boil instead of bake, they are called dumplings, as in chicken and dumplings. They are yummy in this way especially if you love the dough boy like I do.

yeah, what she said! And notch my spelling up to just plain bad spelling!

What is a "git"?

Like lazy git etc.

Please define tart.
Does it mean slut? I didn't want to type that here.

Here in Bristol they have lots of ways with speech which amuse me (I've lived here all my life, but my family originally came from Yorkshire and I was brought up to recognise that these ways are not normal!).

My favourite is 'Alright?'. This is how you're greeted when you meet a Bristolian that you know in the street. It translates as 'Hi!', to which the expected response is 'Alright?'! Meeting him again as you come back the other way, you're greeted with 'Alright?', which by this time translates as 'Bye!', to which you then reply 'Alright?'! This exchange gets a bit much after a while, and I admit that I've crossed the road and pretended not to see people that I know just to avoid it.

Bristolians also add an 'L' to the end of every word that finishes with a vowel. 'Alright? I've just had a brilliant ideal!' Legend has it that a Bristolian once went out of town where he mistakenly had everyone believing that his daughters were called Evil, Idle and Normal.

Nobody says 'great' here either - it's 'gurt'. 'Gurt' slots in neatly anywhere, even where 'great' wouldn't. 'Bristol City played gurt crap at the weekend, dinnum?' ('Bristol City didn't play very well at the weekend, did they?')

No one ever 'is' anything, either - they're all 'bist', and the letter 'H' is mostly non-existent. 'E bist down the pub, tellinum all about 'is gurt ideal!'

I don't know if the film 'Hot Fuzz' ever made it across the Atlantic, but that's just how they speak around here

Yeah - Hot Fuzz is here. I'll have to check it out.

Man this slang could get really confusing.

Thought of some more I don't think has popped up here yet...

gander=look at, as in "let's have a gander" "have a gander at that" etc

don't/couldn't give a tinkers toss is same as "don't give a flying f**k" (also used without the word 'tinkers')

gaff is your home "lets go back to my gaff"
gaffer is the boss, figure in charge.
graft=work (as in hard work) "that took some graft" "he's a good grafter" "that was hard graft"

interesting one I find is calling a woman "fit", and it mean she's hot.

I tried to watch Sweeny Todd on Saturday evening.

I couldn't understand English. Dang I hate that since it is my first language.

I love British comedies. We get a few here:

Monty Python
On the Buses
Fawlty Towers sometimes.

And one of my favorite movies - which I couldn't understand what they were saying for the first 30 minutes is Full Monty.