# Brit slang
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-slang/10892
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 21, 2000, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-slang/10892 "2000-04-21T15:49:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Ezstrete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ezstrete)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2000, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-slang/10892/1 "2000-04-21T15:49:00Z")
What is the derivation of the term ‘Roger’ or ‘Rogering’?
It’s meaning is obvious but how if it originate?
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### Author:  [@krish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/krish)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2000, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-slang/10892/2 "2000-04-21T16:06:00Z")
I’m an ignorant American, so please enlighten me on the meaning.
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### Author:  [@Ezstrete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ezstrete)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2000, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-slang/10892/3 "2000-04-21T16:15:00Z")
Krish
It refers to intercourse and not just the social type—call it biblical\>
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### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2000, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-slang/10892/4 "2000-04-22T05:39:00Z")
I haven’t been able to find an etymology, but I was surprised to learn that the use of the word in this sense dates from the 1650s. See [A Dictionary of Slang](http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/r.htm).
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Work is the curse of the drinking classes. (Oscar Wilde)
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### Author:  [@egkelly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/egkelly)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2000, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-slang/10892/5 "2000-04-21T18:39:00Z")
Ah-Brit slang…remember that 1980’s hit by the Vapors? (“I THINK I’M TURNING JAPANESE”)-somebody told me that 'turning japanese" was brit slang for whacking off-confirm or deby?
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### Author:  [@Ezstrete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ezstrete)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2000, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-slang/10892/6 "2000-04-21T19:30:00Z")
Bibliophage:
I think you’ve struck it!
1650s–pirates–rape and pillage and maiden ravishments and all sorts of “jolly” things.
Yep! I’ll bet it’s an allusion to the old jolly roger boys and their tendencies to take what,if and when they chose.
TNX
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### Author:  [@Occam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Occam)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2000, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-slang/10892/7 "2000-04-21T20:10:00Z")
ahhh…I miss SHAGGING, and not just the 1950’s dance step.
I’ve never BUGGERED a girl before…but I’ve been asked too.
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“Clatu, Verrata…nector?..neck-tie?”
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### Author:  [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2000, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-slang/10892/8 "2000-04-21T21:16:00Z")
Oooookay.
Buggery = anal sex
Shagging = sex, generally
Rogering = I always assumed this was anal sex, but it seems to be used generally too. Not a common phrase here in Britain though.
Turning Japanese = not, and never has been, slang for masturbation, although the song was definitely about it (I believe The Vapours admitted as much).
Any more slang? Just ask the Brit guy.
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[Crusoe Takes A Trip](http://www.fervent.co.uk/)
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### Author:  [@Ezstrete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ezstrete)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2000, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-slang/10892/9 "2000-04-21T23:30:00Z")
MTTK
I don’t know how common it’s usage is in the UK,but I picked it up, and have heard it very often ,in quite a few of your sit-coms dating back over 25 years.
It was,and is,commonly used in those areas—along with “leg-over”,“bonk”,and "shag[ing.
However I’ve tied the dates together and am convinced it’s a throwback to the pirate days of violent[vigorous] assault----apparently terms,like architecture,last forever on “that tight little island”
So–my course is run and I’m fading out–thanks to one and all!
EZ
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2000, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-slang/10892/10 "2000-04-22T05:59:00Z")
Allow me to channel Partridge.
Aum, aum.
Here we go:
> [@](#):
>
> \ ***roger** …
> 5. The penis: from ca. 1650: perhaps orig. c. the name _Roger_: cf. _dick_, _John Thomas_.
>
> **roger** ; often **rodger**. To coit with (a woman): perhaps orig. c.: 1750, Robertson of Struan, who spells it rodger; Grose, 1st ed., ‘From the name Roger, frequently given to a bull’.
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### Author:  [@Ezstrete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ezstrete)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2000, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-slang/10892/11 "2000-04-22T14:50:00Z")
Johnny A
Very plausible
Source please.
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### Author:  [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2000, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-slang/10892/12 "2000-04-22T23:00:00Z")
Turning Japanese- means going insane.
It may be rooted in the incomprehensibility of Japanese.
When I was a kid in the early 60’s it was used as a euphamism for going mad ,as insanity was not talked about directly, or as an insult.
I’ve always understood rodgering to be rear-entry vaginal sex.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2000, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-slang/10892/13 "2000-04-23T00:40:00Z")
**Ezstrete** wrote:
> [@](#):
>
> Very plausible
>
> Source please.
Partridge’s _A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English_, 7th edition.
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### Author:  [@WallyM7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WallyM7)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2000, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-slang/10892/14 "2000-04-23T00:45:00Z")
I seem to recall that “bonking” was the euphamism of choice for sexual intercourse among the football crowd.
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2000, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-slang/10892/15 "2000-04-23T05:24:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Originally posted by WallyM7:
> **I seem to recall that “bonking” was the euphamism of choice for sexual intercourse among the football crowd.**
Are you sure that’s not **boinking**? **Bonk** is a bicycling term meaning to run out of energy.
Then again there’s always **tup** but that usually involves a sheep (not that I have any experience in that kind of thing, understand…).
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### Author:  [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2000, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brit-slang/10892/16 "2000-04-23T06:11:00Z")
**Dtilque**
## I’ve been a cyclist for many years and was kind of surprised when the term bonk as you describe was hijacked by the dumb newspaper crowd. Another term hijacked by them was ‘yomp’ which was armed forces speak for eating but somehow ended up being -to go on a long route march.
## Originally posted by WallyM7: I seem to recall that “bonking” was the euphamism of choice for sexual intercourse among the football crowd.
Not during the game ,surely?
Guess that’s what they mean when they say that football is a passionate sport.