Embarrassingly, during WWII, Churchill occasionally used to give the V-for-victory sign in the “rude” fashion, with the knuckles outwards. Either he was a little out of touch with the common man, or he was sending a subtle message to the Nazis.
I’m told the “thumbs up” gesture is considered rude in the U.K.?
Er, no.
I am surprised that no-one has mentioned
Root… (Sex) (She was a great root, hey, wanna root)
Probably more Australian than British, but it never fails to make us laugh
Root, Root, Root for the home team Oh the lengths you guys will go to…
Mr Rooter advertises on the front of the yellow pages (they deliver)…
Two words for ‘fool’ - prat (literal = arse) and pillock (similar to ‘git’).
I used to use the word ‘prat’ fairly often, until someone in my university hall had the surname of ‘Pratt’. Oh boy, did I feel stupid using it in front of her.:smack:
My two contributions are “bint” and “slash”.
“Bint” means, I think, a bitch or a silly woman. Am I right, Brits?
“Slash” I learned from Patsy Stone of AbFab. “I’ve got to have a slash, darling.”
Ooh, and “wazz”, meaning the same thing as “slash”, I believe.
A cloth-eared bint is a derogatory term for a stupid woman.
But you can buy peanut butter here with no sugar in it. Organic peanut butter is simply ground peanuts, no sugar, no salt, nothing. Even your average grocery store offers brands with low/no sugar in them.
I personally don’t eat much peanut butter; I don’t really like it and can’t stand it with jam anymore, but I ate hundreds of PB & J sandwiches as a kid. I have eaten the orgainic kind, and it tasted just fine with jam/jelly, honey, etc.
I tend to believe it’s the acquired taste thing. Kids are given peanut butter sandwiches as one of their first finger foods here and it’s often one of the few foods they will eat when they go through that finicky phase. As you get older, it becomes a comfort food.
I have been told that English and European sweets are not as sugary as American sweets, and the “peanut butter” they mix with chocolate is very sweet, like peanut butter candy, so that may be why non-Americans think “yuck!”.
Just my $0.02.
Strangely, where I grew up, “wazz” meant “wank”. Which caused me no end of confusion and embarrassement when I went to college, and heard things like “I’ll be there in a minute - I’m just going to have a wazz”, or walking back from the pub: “I’m desperate - I’ve got to go and have a wazz in the bushes over there”.
The candies here are definitely less sweet than in the US, and so is the peanut butter. I got some Skippy sent over from Boston (yeah, I’m a peanut butter freak) and found it utterly inedible, it was so loaded with corn syrup. I don’t know what European pb you mean when you say it’s mixed with chocolate - is that like Nutella, which is a German hazelnut and chocolate spread that is also horribly sweet?
Names for women: Bint; doris; bird (or lemon - lemon curd); boiler; totty.
Sorry, I meant the peanut butter that Americans mix with our chocolate, such as the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups someone mentioned earlier. They are very sweet.
As to the corn syrup in peanut butter, they put it in everything. Really. Everything. :rolleyes:
Yeah, I notice you get it in your ketchup too. Bleaugh.
I was having a conversation with a Brit co-worker of mine who is English (I’m from the U.S.), and I happened to say, “Oh yeah, she has a lot of spunk.” He looked at me like I was kooky, and it turns out that he interpreted full of “spunk” or “spunky” to mean full of “sperm”.
While I have heard “spunk” used in that way, I would say that such usage in the States is nonstandard slang, mostly relegated to the porn industry, and is not commonly understood that way by Americans, b/c there are so many other slang terms for that kind of thing like cum, jism, etc.
“Spunk” and “spunky” in standard American English – which is derived from the Scottish Gaelic word “spong” for the ‘spongey’ tinder used to start a fire – has such a positive connotation and a totally nonsexual meaning to describe people (usually diminutive folks) who show a lot of spirit, energy or drive.
Is that how it is also interpreted and used in the U.K., or have you guys relegated this wonderful word to a strictly reproductive-related sense?
Spunk was used in Austrailian soaps to mean a cute (guy normally) person. It amused us teenagers, since I don’t watch Austrailian soaps any more I don’t know if they still use the term.
I think you can get away with spunk/spunky = cute in the UK
You so can’t.
But use it anyway, just for the craic! 
Damn jjimm, damn damn.
Worth a try… 
Rather than just wasting space:
Aslema.
Bint is arabic - meaning ‘Daugher of’ (like ‘Bin’ is son of) and in English was used by servicemen as a derogatory term for women, typically non-caucasian. Not really used anymore, some sites list it as ‘Young Girl’ - I don’t know the straight dope on the real meaning. Possibly a racist slur, use not recommended.
I can’t believe that nobody has posted the origin of Fair Dinkum.
If I recall the article correctly (in an old Mother Earth News), it is a corruption of “vere dignum,” a Latin phrase meaning “very proper.” Therefore if something is just as it should be, and all is right with the world, it is fair dinkum.
There’s no racial connotation to “bint” despite its origins. It just means a female - usually a dozy one.
No, I can’t believe it either :rolleyes: