When I was in high school, the fencing team had t-shirts made that said “Real men wear knickers” on the back. I, as the resident Anglophile, found this slogan far more amusing than anyone else did.
As for the different uses of the word piss you forgot ‘piece of piss’, meaning very easy. For example, a friend might ask me if an essay was hard and i’d reply with ‘Nah, was a piece o’ piss’
At least, i think nobody mentioned that one…
STIMPY
I thought Smeg (as used in Red Dwarf) was from Smegma, and that smegma was the cheese that gathers (if unwashed) under foreskin.
? Yikes!
I thought “smeg” was a made-up word chosen purely because it sounded rude (i.e. like “smegma”), not actually a word genuinely derived from the term.
Here in midwest US, geezer and codger both mean “old guy” without any bad shadings. My old 12 pound dictionary says geezer may mean lying old (guise-er) guy, and codger may mean untrustworthy old guy, maybe dealing in falcons. In a long-ago article about the proto-punk band The Sex Pistols, the Rolling Stone quoted one of Johnny Rotten’s bandmates. He said, (roughly) “He was the nastiest geezer I ever met.” In the same article, one of the Pistols, referring to injecting heroin, called it “geezing up.”
So, I have to ask, what are geezers and codgers to the average Brit? As a 54-year old retired Yank, this is more than an idle curiosity.
First time I met a certain business contact from BC I asked her if she was originally Scottish – as she had a soft burr to her speech that I associate with that accent. She was raised in the Kamloops area, and later when I was living in Vancouver for a while I met a lot of people whose accent I could have mistaken for Scots or English.
<Small further digression>
And there you have captured a cultural divide… in a nutshell, if you will.
Peanut butter does not have sugar in it. It is a savoury spread… which then explains why it doesn’t go so well with Jam / Jelly.
Most major NZ brands = no sugar. (ETA and Sanitarium) Kraft = sugar. bleech
And I can’t speak for the Brits, but the local here devour tons of the stuff – even more than Marmite.
For me a “geezer” means what owlstretchingtime described it as:
relating to the above; a codger is an affectionate term for an old man. It’s the sort of thing one might call one’s father/grandfather.
The Daily Mirror used to have a column called the old codgers where old people would send in truly outstandingly dull letters about cleaning your windows with newspapers or the correct recipe for Wooton Pie.
And another use of piss - as a verb - meaning to do easily: “was your driving test hard?” “nah, I pissed it”.
Here are some more that yanks (who incidentally we call septics) might not get:
Nonce
poof
bender
growler
biff
hand shandy
sherman/jodrell/ J Arthur
Gladys/eartha
Doris
BOBFOC
When come back, bring words for hairy pie.
I have to hijack this thread slightly in order to make my customary expression of disgust when ever anyone mentions Marmite…Bleeeeeuuugghhh. Satan’s spunk.
Carry on.
AKA “two bagger”.
I’m partial to the word “fannybaws”
BOBFOC - Body off baywatch , face off Crimewatch. Eg Tracey Emin.
THis amuses me enormously:
http://www.novell.com/training/cde/features/randy.html
A few more:
beef curtains
fanny batter
minge
munter
and about a million for gays eg uphill gardener etc.
And a favourite expression for a messy muff " a fanny like a bear trappers hat" Also a biff like terry waites allotment"
In the same vein as BOBFOC we also have FAFCAM:
Noun: “Fit as fuck, common as muck”. E.g. Girls Aloud, Heidi off of Sugababes, and possibly an Atomic Kitten (at a push).
Popbitch had a great phrase a while back that I can’t quite remember. It was something like “Labradoring” - the council estate equivalent of making a rough dog appear smooth and attractive, i.e. what the music industry did to Atomic Kitten.
…Which reminds me of the great Popbitch phrase “pram face” - the sort of face you’d see pushing a baby buggy round a council estate (again, see Atomic Kitten). My street is full of them, often with their hear pulled very tightly back off their faces into a pony-tail topknot, thus accentuating their pramfacedness.
The arrangement you are referring to is called a “croydon facelift”
ie it makes young (but haggard) birds look like zsa zsa gabor would if someone had crept up behind her and burst a balloon (courtesy viz).
“Wizzards sleeve” is a good 'un too as" is wet as an otters pocket."
Perhaps we should write in to professor fuck?
Not a word, but a gesture; and I found out the hard way that it’s rude. Either a “V for victory” sign, or a peace sign (you know, your index and middle finger raised up in a “V” shape), but with your knuckles turned outward, rather than facing you, is apparently akin to extending the middle finger to someone in England. One day, as my wife and I were walking into a pub in Northumberland, the manager asked, “how many?” and I replied “two” and held up two fingers with the knuckles facing the manager. He nearly smacked me! Then realizing I was an ignorant Yank, simply said to me, “That’s quite rude, you know!” I had no idea what he was talking about.
Labdad, you got off lightly! That sign with the fingers facing you means “F–k you”. I’m glad the person you showed it to was understanding!
Herge, that’s what extending the middle finger means over here!