# Are "chunter" and "manky" Liverpool or Canadian slang words? And I'm not quite sure what they mean.. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 20, 2015, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-chunter-and-manky-liverpool-or-canadian-slang-words-and-im-not-quite-sure-what-they-mean/731947 "2015-09-20T14:29:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![cornflakes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@cornflakes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cornflakes)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-chunter-and-manky-liverpool-or-canadian-slang-words-and-im-not-quite-sure-what-they-mean/731947/21 "2015-09-21T03:35:10Z")
Manky and mank are used pretty commonly in the US (and Canada, I think) by paddlers to refer to the smell of wet, unwashed paddling clothes and footwear. I think I’ve also heard manky used to describe dirty water, or stretches of water with lots of brush, nuisance rocks or the like. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-chunter-and-manky-liverpool-or-canadian-slang-words-and-im-not-quite-sure-what-they-mean/731947/22 "2015-09-21T06:05:21Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > **Plod** in the UK has become slang for **Police** , inspired by Mr Plod, the policeman in Enid Blyton’s [Noddy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noddy_%28character%29)/Toyland books. > > ETA: I’m not a Brit but I am an Enid Blyton fan, which is how I know the reference. ‘Plod’ means something more like ‘trudge’ than ‘trundle’ - there is an implication of moving forward wearily and slowly _on foot_ (‘trundle’ implies wheels). I imagine (but cannot prove) that PC Plod was so named because he’s a bobby with a beat that he patrols on foot. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-chunter-and-manky-liverpool-or-canadian-slang-words-and-im-not-quite-sure-what-they-mean/731947/23 "2015-09-21T06:58:26Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > ‘Plod’ means something more like ‘trudge’ than ‘trundle’ - there is an implication of moving forward wearily and slowly _on foot_ (‘trundle’ implies wheels). > > I imagine (but cannot prove) that PC Plod was so named because he’s a bobby with a beat that he patrols on foot. Quite. Time was, Gray’s _Elegy in a Country Churchyard_ was regularly learned by heart in English schools: _The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me_ OED quotes sources back into the 16th century. “Chunter” to me has always been to do with speech rather than movement. Something more than muttering, implicitly repetitive, often bearing some sense of grievance. I think the author quoted was using a bit of poetic licence, rather suggests they were playing whatever it was without much enthusiasm, going through the motions. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-chunter-and-manky-liverpool-or-canadian-slang-words-and-im-not-quite-sure-what-they-mean/731947/24 "2015-09-21T07:43:42Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > I’ve never heard of “chunter”. I HAVE heard of “chunder”, but that’s somewhat different. Yes, the OP made me think of that particular piece of [Australian slang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_Under_%28song%29) (and elsewhere?) It also made me think of the Scottish “[haver](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'm_Gonna_Be_%28500_Miles%29).” ---
**Author:** ![Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ac8455/32.png) [@Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Your_Great_Darsh_Face)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-chunter-and-manky-liverpool-or-canadian-slang-words-and-im-not-quite-sure-what-they-mean/731947/25 "2015-09-21T09:18:59Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > Quite. Time was, Gray’s _Elegy in a Country Churchyard_ was regularly learned by heart in English schools: > > _The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,_ The _Children’s Encyclopaedia_, which was pitched at quite young children, quoted this line and explained how the words in that short sentence could be arranged in a huge number of different ways while still preserving the essential meaning. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-chunter-and-manky-liverpool-or-canadian-slang-words-and-im-not-quite-sure-what-they-mean/731947/26 "2015-09-21T09:30:04Z")
Goodness me, is that Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopedia? I was brought up on that. Mind, it was all fields round here in them days. ---
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-chunter-and-manky-liverpool-or-canadian-slang-words-and-im-not-quite-sure-what-they-mean/731947/27 "2015-09-21T15:21:50Z")
56 year-old Canadian here - I’ve never heard, or heard of, either of those words until I read the question here. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-chunter-and-manky-liverpool-or-canadian-slang-words-and-im-not-quite-sure-what-they-mean/731947/28 "2015-09-21T17:37:13Z")
Chuntering is often associated with teenagers, when told by parents they cannot do or have something, they may whinge and complain and moan about the unfairness of everything - that is classic chuntering ---
**Author:** ![OffByOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/45deac/32.png) [@OffByOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OffByOne)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-chunter-and-manky-liverpool-or-canadian-slang-words-and-im-not-quite-sure-what-they-mean/731947/29 "2015-09-21T18:14:39Z")
Does no one here watch “American Pickers”? One of the guys (tall skinny one) regularly uses “manky” to describe the condition of some item he might be interested in. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-chunter-and-manky-liverpool-or-canadian-slang-words-and-im-not-quite-sure-what-they-mean/731947/30 "2015-09-27T14:20:16Z")
Not sure how I forgot about this one: [QUOTE=In Bruges] Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf. I think I’m heading home. [/QUOTE] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-chunter-and-manky-liverpool-or-canadian-slang-words-and-im-not-quite-sure-what-they-mean/731947.md?page=1)