50 Fun Facts About British Slang

The rude noise known as 'blowing a raspberry' takes its name from Cockney rhyming slang for which word?

Fart is the word rhymed with 'raspberry tart', and speakers then dropped the rhyming half. That habit of clipping is what makes the slang so baffling to outsiders.

British police are nicknamed 'bobbies' after which Home Secretary, who founded London's Metropolitan Police in 1829?

Robert Peel gave the force two nicknames: officers were 'bobbies' from his first name and 'peelers' from his surname.

People from which English port city are called 'Scousers', after a sailors' stew known as lobscouse?

Liverpool took the nickname from a stew that sailors carried between the ports of northern Europe, where its relatives survive as Norway's lapskaus and Germany's labskaus.

A Briton who feels 'knackered', a word tied to the yards where old horses were slaughtered, is in what state?

Exhausted is the meaning, and the image behind it is grim: a knacker made a living from horses too old or sick to work, a trade recorded under that name since 1812.

Which coin do Britons 'spend' in a euphemism for visiting the toilet, a phrase born of coin-operated lavatory locks?

A penny was the price of entry: stage magician John Nevil Maskelyne patented a coin-operated lock for London's public toilets in about 1892, and the phrase outlived the fee.

Which nickname are British sausages said to have earned when watery wartime versions burst in the frying pan?

Bangers are said to date from First World War meat rationing, when sausages held so much water that they could explode during cooking. The name was in print by 1919.

Which 1997 comedy about six unemployed men in Sheffield borrowed its title from British slang for 'the whole lot'?

The Full Monty carried the phrase around the world, yet nobody is sure where it began. One theory credits the three-piece suits sold by the tailor Montague Burton.

British English describes anything that sharply divides opinion as being like which salty, dark-brown yeast spread?

Marmite is made from the yeast left over by beer brewing, and its divisive taste is so familiar that Britons speak of a 'Marmite effect' whenever something splits a crowd.

'Apples and pears', listed in the first rhyming slang glossary in 1859, is Cockney for what?

Stairs is the meaning, though speakers usually drop the rhyme itself, so a Cockney heading to bed simply goes 'up the apples'.

Which activity does British slang call 'snogging', as in the 1999 teen novel 'Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging'?

Kissing, and with some passion, is what a snog involves. Louise Rennison's novel opened a ten-book series, and its 2008 film softened the title to 'Perfect Snogging'.

Which slang word for a pound sterling, in use since the 1600s, stays the same whether a Briton has one or fifty?

Quid is both singular and plural, so it is always 'ten quid', except in the phrase 'quids in'. Nobody knows where the word came from, though the Latin of 'quid pro quo' is one guess.

In the British word 'gobsmacked', meaning utterly astonished, which part of the body is the 'gob'?

Mouth is the meaning of 'gob', a word probably taken from Irish or Scottish Gaelic, so a gobsmacked person looks as if they have just been hit in the face.

England's travelling fans in which sport are called the 'Barmy Army', a name coined by Australian media in the 1990s?

Cricket fans earned the name on the 1994–95 Ashes tour, when 'barmy', British slang for slightly crazy, suited supporters who kept cheering a team that was losing badly.

Which breakfast food is British slang for a prison sentence and the title of a 1970s sitcom starring Ronnie Barker?

Porridge was once the standard breakfast in British prisons, which is how 'doing porridge' came to mean serving time. The slang dates from the 1950s.

The London greeting 'wagwan', short for 'what's going on', comes from the creole of which Caribbean island?

Jamaica supplied both the greeting and its stock reply, 'nagwan', meaning that nothing is going on. Both are now heard across the Jamaican diaspora.

British slang calls a police officer 'plod' after Mr Plod, the Toyland policeman created by which children's author?

Enid Blyton put Mr Plod in her Noddy stories. The name suits a slow, heavy-footed walk, which is how the slang pictures an officer on the beat.

Which British word, coined by the political satire The Thick of It, was named Oxford's Word of the Year for 2012?

Omnishambles, a situation mismanaged at every turn, was written by Tony Roche for a 2009 episode. Real politicians took it up so keenly that Oxford added it to its online dictionary in 2013.

Which British word for upper-class is tied by an unproven legend to shaded cabins on steamships sailing to India?

Posh is said to stand for 'port out, starboard home', the cooler side of the ship each way, but no evidence supports the tale. A Romani word for 'half', used of money, is likelier.

Which hooded jacket became British slang for an obsessive hobbyist, a label famously pinned on trainspotters?

Anorak is said to have been aimed first at fans of offshore pirate radio in the early 1970s, who chartered boats to visit the radio ships. In 1984 the Observer pinned it on trainspotters.

A Londoner who asks to 'have a butcher's', rhyming slang built on a butcher's hook, wants to do what?

Take a look is the meaning, since that is what rhymes. The S-shaped hook for hanging meat lent its name in the late 1800s, and by the 1930s plain 'butcher's' was in general use.

Which soldiers' nickname for Britain, widespread from the First World War, grew from an Indian word meaning 'foreign'?

Blighty also named a soldier's dream injury: a 'Blighty wound' was bad enough to send a man home from the trenches without killing or maiming him.

Which British word for 'crazy' recalls an army transit camp in India where soldiers waited for ships home?

Doolally was the soldiers' name for Deolali, a camp opened in 1861. Men stuck there for long spells were said to catch 'Doolally tap', which translates roughly as camp fever.

Which word from South Asia, where it means 'ripe' or 'cooked', became British slang for first-class and genuine?

Pukka came home with the British from India, where a 'pukka sahib' was a true gentleman. Britons still use the word informally for anything excellent.

Which British insult, usually traced to a Romani word for a boy or child, was named word of the year in 2004?

Chav had reached the national newspapers and everyday speech by the time Susie Dent's annual language report for Oxford University Press gave it the title.

Which British word for a lout is a product of back slang, in which an everyday word is said or spelled backwards?

Yob is simply 'boy' turned around, and for decades it meant no more than that. It only began to carry an insult in the 1930s.

Which British slang word for a research scientist emerged from military talk during the Second World War?

Boffin has no agreed origin. One theory points to Mr Boffin, the 'golden dustman' who takes up learning late in life in Charles Dickens's novel Our Mutual Friend.

In Cockney rhyming slang, what does 'tea leaf', a rhyme based purely on sound, stand for?

A thief is the meaning, chosen purely for its sound, with no link between the two ideas. Other rhymes carry a joke, as when a wife becomes the 'trouble and strife'.

In British rhyming slang, how have things turned out when they have 'gone Pete Tong', after a Radio 1 dance DJ?

Wrong is the rhyme, and the phrase was famous enough to title a 2004 film, It's All Gone Pete Tong, about a club DJ who goes completely deaf.

A Briton who 'hasn't got a Scooby', rhyming slang built on a cartoon Great Dane, is missing what?

A clue is the missing thing, by way of 'Scooby-Doo'. The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest example comes from a Glasgow newspaper in the 1990s, a long way from Cockney London.

Before decimal currency arrived in 1971, which British coin, a twentieth of a pound, was known as a 'bob'?

Shilling coins were called bobs by 1789, when the word surfaced in an Old Bailey trial as criminals' cant. It never took a plural, so a florin was 'two bob'.

A popular theory links 'Bob's your uncle' to which politician, handed an Irish post in 1887 by his uncle Lord Salisbury?

Arthur Balfour's promotion smacked of nepotism, hence the joke that anything is easy with Bob for an uncle. Doubters note the phrase is not found in print until 1923.

Which nickname for people from Newcastle and Tyneside is often linked to a safety lamp once carried by local miners?

Geordie is a pet form of George, once a very common name among the region's pitmen, and the lamp that George Stephenson designed in 1815 as a rival to Humphry Davy's went by the same nickname.

'Cob', 'barm', 'batch' and 'bap' are rival regional names in Britain for which everyday bakery item?

A bread roll changes its name from region to region, and the choice is such a point of local pride that the pollster YouGov has surveyed the country on it.

'Ginnel', 'snicket', 'twitten' and 'jitty' are regional words in England for which feature of a town?

A narrow alley is a twitten in Sussex, a jitty in Derbyshire and a ginnel around Manchester and Leeds, while York blends three such words into its 'snickelways'.

In northern England, a 'butty', as in the chip-filled favourite of fish and chip shops, is which kind of food?

A sandwich is the meaning, and the name is thought to come from 'buttered' bread. The chip butty is said to date from the fish and chip shops of the 19th century.

Which British insult for an idiot was popularised by the market trader Del Boy in the sitcom Only Fools and Horses?

Plonker is one of several words that writer John Sullivan is credited with spreading, along with 'cushty', a term of approval taken from a Romani word for good.

British children cross the road with a 'lollipop lady', a nickname inspired by the shape of what?

Her stop sign is a circle on a long pole, so it resembles a giant lollipop. A man doing the same job is a lollipop man.

Which British institution, formed in 1922, is sometimes informally referred to as 'Auntie'?

The BBC is also called 'the Beeb', and within a year of its founding it had launched Radio Times, the first broadcast listings magazine.

To be 'on your tod', rhyming slang from the name of the American jockey Tod Sloan, is to be in what state?

Alone is the meaning: 'Tod Sloan' stands in for 'own'. Sloan rode five winners in a row at Newmarket in 1898 and popularised the crouching forward seat in England.

A Cockney's 'barnet', rhyming slang named after a north London event that dates back to 1588, is which part of the body?

Hair is the rhyme for 'Barnet Fair', and the slang has been heard since the 1850s. The fair began when Elizabeth I granted a charter to the lord of the manor of Barnet.

In London slang for sums of money, a 'pony' is £25; which animal stands for £500?

A monkey is £500 to a London trader, twenty times the value of a pony. In the same slang a 'score' is £20 and a 'ton' is £100.

Which pair of composers gives Cockney rhyming slang its phrase for being drunk, a rhyme with a ruder word?

Brahms and Liszt owe the honour entirely to the second man's surname, and the phrase is often cut to a bare 'Brahms', which hides the meaning from anyone not in the know.

A hungry Briton who is 'Hank Marvin', rhyming slang for starving, borrows the name of which band's lead guitarist?

The Shadows backed Cliff Richard and were called the Drifters until 1959, when the American group of that name threatened to sue.

Britons who catch 'the lurgy', a vague illness, are using a word popularised in 1954 by which radio comedy?

The Goon Show built a whole 1954 episode around a dreaded epidemic that turned out to be a scam, written by Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes, and the word outlived the joke.

Cornish locals call the tourists who crowd their county each summer 'emmets', an old dialect word for which insect?

Ant is the meaning, and the joke is that visitors turn red and mill about in swarms. Across the border in Devon, the usual word for a holidaymaker is 'grockle'.

Which Scots word for dull, gloomy weather topped a 2019 Scottish Book Trust poll to find the most iconic Scots word?

Dreich was first recorded in 1420, when it meant enduring or tedious, and it had already won a YouGov poll of favourite Scots words in 2013.

Which Welsh word for a cuddle that offers warmth and safety is often described as impossible to translate into English?

Cwtch began as a South Wales colloquialism and may descend from the Old French 'coucher'. Elizabeth Taylor famously used it of her Welsh husband, Richard Burton.

Which British word for a flashy dealer in black-market goods during wartime rationing fits Private Walker in Dad's Army?

Spiv was the word for the sharp operators who could find rationed goods for a price. British crime films of 1945 to 1950 featured them so often that critics speak of a 'spiv cycle'.

The British soldier's nickname 'Tommy' comes from a specimen name on War Office forms from 1815; what was the surname?

Atkins was the name filled in on sample pages of the Soldiers Account Book, and 'Tommy Atkins' stuck. The 1815 date sinks a tale that the Duke of Wellington chose it in 1843.

In Multicultural London English, the youth dialect that emerged in the late twentieth century, what does 'bare' mean?

Plenty of, or simply 'very', is the sense, so 'bare people' means a crowd. Newspapers have given the dialect nicknames of its own, including 'Blinglish' and 'Blockney'.