# Does this faked British conversation actually mean anything in British? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 4, 2007, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-faked-british-conversation-actually-mean-anything-in-british/386640 "2007-01-04T03:43:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-faked-british-conversation-actually-mean-anything-in-british/386640/1 "2007-01-04T03:43:28Z")
[Link.](http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/10/26) For Lynx users and those who simply can’t be arsed to read the comic themselves, the conversation goes: “Bally! SNIVELSOME oatings, eh pipper?” “Rather. Hairs on a bobbin, old bunt. Hairs on a **bobbin**.” Would any of this actually mean anything in any English dialect, current or historical? ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-faked-british-conversation-actually-mean-anything-in-british/386640/2 "2007-01-04T03:51:38Z")
Nope. Well, all the words are actual words (except maybe “oatings”) but strung together there’s no actual sense there. It’s just a string of upper-class Brit-like words with a few random ones mixed in. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-faked-british-conversation-actually-mean-anything-in-british/386640/3 "2007-01-04T04:07:55Z")
I figured that might be the case. What do those words mean? I can figure out what “rather” and “eh” mean, but do “bally”, “snivelsome” and “bunt” mean what they sound like from context? What about “bobbin”? ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-faked-british-conversation-actually-mean-anything-in-british/386640/4 "2007-01-04T06:50:01Z")
[QUOTE=fetus] I figured that might be the case. What do those words mean? I can figure out what “rather” and “eh” mean, but do “bally”, “snivelsome” and “bunt” mean what they sound like from context? What about “bobbin”? [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=fetus] I figured that might be the case. What do those words mean? I can figure out what “rather” and “eh” mean, but do “bally”, “snivelsome” and “bunt” mean what they sound like from context? What about “bobbin”? [/QUOTE] Translations: Rather: Emphatic and enthusiastic affirmative Usually used in response to a question. eg “Kind of cold tonght isn’t it?” “Rather”. Eh: Inquisitive form of “yes”. “Bit cold, eh?” Bally: A bowdlerised form of “bloody”. Bloody itself is simply an intensifier and can be substituted with “very” or “great” with no great change in meaning. eg “It’s bally cold”, “You are a bally genius”. I’m not sure that anybody in real life ever said “Bally” but movies and TV used it a lot to get around censorship laws. Snivelsome: Inclined to snivelling. Tending towards cowardice and whining. Bunt: Popularised as an insult from a Monty Python spoonerism involving a character that pronounces all "C"s as "A"s. “What a silly bunt”. Bobbin: A standard english word for the central spool in a roll of thread. As you can see it’s total gibberish with an upper class sound. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-faked-british-conversation-actually-mean-anything-in-british/386640/5 "2007-01-04T10:51:53Z")
I don’t think “snivelsome” is actually a word, although you can certainly imagine what it might mean. “Bunt”, I’ve never heard a British person use except perhaps baseball aficianados. “Bobbins”, they might have picked up from its recent use as an alternative to “useless” or “rubbish”, possibly as a jokey bowdlerisation of “bollocks” - “this comic strip is bobbins.” ---
**Author:** ![Martha\_Medea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Martha\_Medea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martha_Medea)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-faked-british-conversation-actually-mean-anything-in-british/386640/6 "2007-01-04T11:16:49Z")
Note that ‘bally’ in this sense is pronounced with ‘a’ as in apple, not ball, so that it sounds more like ‘bloody’ or ‘bladdy’.