When it comes to Aussie phrases my favorites are:
“Don’t come the raw prawn with me.” Meaning don’t try to deceive me by appearing naive or ignorant.
Describing someone as a “black catter”. As in, you have a fast car their car is faster, you have a big house their house is bigger, you have a black cat their cat is blacker.
Old timey slang is lots of fun.
As I said in the OP, a lot of it is sexual. Consider Tudor England.
And one of course can’t appreciate Shakespeare without recognizing the double entendres he frequently used.
In another thread, there’s a reference to “country matters” and the fact that “nothing” was slang for a woman’s genitalia, giving new understanding to the title Much Ado About Nothing
My ex mother-in-law did the same. She told me it was British. I’ve since learned it is not.
I think in certain contexts - when referring to places or things, not people - it means the same as “classy” would to an American. “Posh restaurant” = “classy restaurant”. Whereas when referring to a person, “classy” denotes their behavior, in a purely positive sense, whilst “posh” denotes their background, usually in a negative way.
There’s a version of that I came across in the UK I like- Elevenerifer. As in, you’ve been to Tenerife, they’ve been to Elevenerife.
I once (early-80s) read an article about the emergence of basketball in Africa that made derisive reference to the “Wabenzi,” the rich folks who drove Mercedes-Benzes.
The (sometimes) obscure origins of these slang terms has reminded me of one that I actually listen for specifically. In “A Christmas Carol,” Dickens has the young boy passing by Scrooge’s window yell, “Walk-ER!” at Scrooge after being told to go buy the prize turkey. In every film and stage adaptation of the book I see, I listen carefully to see if it’s included or omitted. At present, it’s about 50-50.
I kinda do the same- and that slang term was apparently Hookey Walker.
My personal favourite is “yeet”, which I picked up from my kids. I understand it has a few meanings but its use to mean “To throw an object with high speed and great force, often without caring where it lands” is what I like about it.
Unlike many of the terms here, “yeet” is not just yet another superlative, or synonym. It’s a word for something we’ve all experienced that didn’t really exist before.
Yeah, “nothing” is a very useful one. “What are you thinking about?” “Nothing.”
“Pwn” is an interesting one: Usually new slang arises in spoken form, and there’s sometimes then a dispute about its proper spelling (for instance, “do-rag” vs. “du-rag”). I think that “pwn” was the first case of a neologism with a definite spelling, but with a dispute over its pronunciation. Rhyming with “own” seems to have emerged as the consensus, but there were also those arguing for “pawn” or “poon”.
Another recent one along those lines is “the zoomies”, for when a pet or other animal runs around like crazy. The old term was “frenetic random activity period”, or “FRAP”, which just doesn’t have the same zing to it.
“pwn” is a typo of “own,” and it began in online gaming forums and game chat. Along with “noob,” “newb,” “n00b” and other variations, it became online taunting in the form of “pwn the noobs,” “Ipwnjoo,” etc. There’s also “elite,” “uber” and their alternate spellings to signify your amount of loot and the power guild you’re a member of.
I don’t see those words as often as I did 20 years ago, probably because more gamers use voice apps and type less nowadays.
“Ah, Man! I’m Sportin’ Wood!”
I said that when I won some concert tickets on the radio. It made it way into a station promo. I got to hear it thousands of times on the radio.
It is “do” as in hair-do, as in to do, any I do not think there is that much controversy about how to spell it. Now, different dialects might pronounce different vowels there, so if you insist on spelling it phonetically you might get du, dae, dee, deu, dow, doe, etc.
yes, it’s one key over.
I’m quite fond of ‘it’s all gone Pete Tong’; a piece of (fairly widespread) rhyming slang in the UK that references the BBC Radio 1 DJ Pete Tong.
If this is not obvious, it is slang for ‘it’s all gone wrong’; indeed the WWII slang ‘SNAFU’ has a very similar meaning, and is also an interesting term in itself.
I think I may have seen that in a Dr. Suess special.
Yup, and that’s why a lot of people thought it should be “do-rag”. But etymology isn’t language, and people who actually wear du-rags almost always spell it du-rag, so that’s the correct spelling.
In the 1980s, my buddies and I were fond of using the word “radical” (or “rad” for short) as a synonym for “awesome.” Example: “Hey, you should hear this guitar solo by Kirk Hammett. It is rad.”
Not sure where we picked that up from.
Milhouse?
It was short-lived skateboarder slang in the late-seventies in Southern California. As soon as it gained traction in pop-culture it became uncool in the circles that created it. I could use it as a freshman in High School (1978) but by the time I was a junior it would have been as ridiculous as calling something “groovy”.
… which touches on an interesting point. In many (most?) cases, what used to be slang is either archaic (or lost) or has become standard English, For example, I have a fondness for Polari (which is arguably a language of sorts rather than slang - someone on this board will know the right word) and was going to suggest the word Naff - but I suspect that’s standard English now. Likewise Ogle and Mince. (The link to Polari has a word list).
So: I’ll go with Winchester Geese, a word I was taught recently, when a friend took us past Cross Bones, a former prostitutes cemetery, hidden away on the South Bank in London. The prostitutes of the area were, in the 17th century, licensed by the Bishop of Winchester (no, really) hence Winchester Geese.
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I don’t like yeet because I don’t see what need it filled. I have never felt the need to throw something forcefully not caring where it lands.