British Slang 3 Flashcards
jelly
jam
Jell-O
jelly
USA
the states
never say….
awesome
thank you
cheers!
hello to a close friend
hey babes
custom made
bespoke
two weeks
fortnight
vacuum
hoover
sleep or nap
kip
knowledgeable
know your onions
Whine
Whinge
10
tenner
5
fiver
lazy or avoid doing something
skive
upper Class Person
toff
customer/prostitute’s client, john
punter
someone from Liverpool
scouser
stolen (2)
nicked, burgled
church of england
c of e
z
zed
Yes!
Absobloodylootely
looking for sex
on the pull
one time only
one off
fired from a job
made redundant
easy
easy peasy
Do a deal or take a dump
See a man about a dog
genitalia (2)
meat and two veg, twigs & berries
flirt
chat up
poser
ponce
television
the telly
going to bed
I’m Off to Bedfordshire
to be in prison
Her Majesty’s Pleasure
sausage
bangers
dickhead
knobhead
party
do
college/university
uni
bachelor party
stag night
Britain
Blighty
disembark
alight
Many American tourists are confronted with this word quite rapidly after reaching the U.K., because on the London Underground the pre-recorded message says such things as: “This is Baker Street. Alight here for Madame Tussauds.”
stake a claim for something in the same way that Americans would claim “dibbs” on or “call” some item or privilege
bagsie
I bagsie the front seat or Bagsie first shot on the dodgems!
very cold (2)
Baltic, it’s monkeys outside
I’m not going outside without a coat, it’s bloody Baltic! Presumably named for the Baltic states, which aren’t all that cold.
press on regardless, to keep struggling in the face of adversity
bash on
that’s done
bingo bango bongo
Popularised by T.V. chef Jamie Oliver, and now used by people who are young enough to think it sounds nice.
make a bit of a haphazard job of something, something cobbled together
bodge
A “bodger” was originally a craftsman who worked on a green-wood lathe, but this information is of almost no help at all because the word “bodger” still rather implies that such a person was “bodging” something.
no frills, the basic version
bog standard
So your “bog standard” Volkswagen Golf would be one that doesn’t have electric windows, power steering or opposable thumbs. Well, nowadays a bog-standard Golf probably does have two thirds of those things. There’s no particular reason to believe that the term has anything to do with a toilet (see “bog”).
Scottish beautiful
bonny
A little antiquated — you’d be much more likely to hear: Deirdre’s new granddaughter is awfully bonny! than you would: Bobby’s stolen a bonny new shooter — we’re going to go out this evening and do the chip shop over.
died
bought it
Generally refers to someone who died doing something somewhat dangerous: D’you know Jochen Rindt was the first posthumous Formula One champion? Bought it four races from the end of the 1970 season and still won the bloody thing.
scared (2)
bricking it, startled
He didn’t do very well in the interview – we felt a bit sorry for him as he was clearly bricking it.
copious amounts of paperwork or literature
bumf
You would not believe the bloody stack of bumf that came with my new video recorder. Possibly derived from the army and a contraction of the phrase “bum fodder,” i.e., toilet paper.
stick; wedge
Push something into something, often something that was not intended for that purpose
Stopper, often rubber, the type of thing you use to block fluid from coming out of things
A bribe intended to buy silence. A monetary reward given to someone in order to buy their tacit agreement, often associated with the fixing of sports games,
Up full of cold, congested
bung
“Eventually we discovered that it wasn’t working because our son had bunged a Polish sausage into the video recorder.”
“Everyone knows that their manager’s taking bungs to throw the matches anyway.”
“I can’t come into work today, one of the kids is bunged up.”
