This may be turning into an obsession but I seem to be preoccupied lately with two things: language and food. As I’ll be away for several days I wanted to leave you with a few further thoughts on British idioms. I expect this to be my last word on the topic for quite a while. And as for food, I’ll have much more to say on that topic when I return!
Hyperbole and Euphemism
The Brits can sometimes be extravagant in their use of language. For example people don’t say that a thing is simply “good”. Rather, it is “brilliant”. For example if you are trying to find a convenient date for a meeting and reach agreement, you would typically say, “That’s brilliant”.
At the other end of the emotional spectrum, the language can be equally dramatic. If people are highly disappointed by something they may say they are “gutted”, conjuring up images of being brutally disembowelled like a fish on a cutting board. Similarly, while being “knackered” means to be tired, if one were really exhausted he would say he is “shattered”.
And if the Brits don’t like something it is “rubbish”.
However there are times when the British English is far more understated, even euphemistic. Take the example of so-called “anti-social behaviour”. While in North America this may typically refer to someone who has a tendency to avoid other people and mix poorly in social situations, in Britain this describes young male yobs who are be noisy, disruptive, abusive, aggressive and even destructive in public. The problem of anti-social behaviour has been so acute in Britain that the former labour government under Tony Blair launched something called “ASBO” or “Anti-Social Behaviour Order” (pronounced “AZ-bo”). Although the present Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government plans to phase them out, ASBOs are orders against people who had engaged in anti-social behaviour that restricted their behaviour in some way (i.e. barring them from swearing or drinking in public or from returning to a certain location). Not surprisingly, these have not been effective.
And speaking of acronyms, another good one is OAPs, which turns out to be a popular short form for “old age pensioners”.
Pardon my French
Being across the channel – the English Channel or La Manche, depending on which side you’re on – from the French can influence a language and while the Brits may not like to admit it, there are traces of French in their choice of words. For example instead of saying “eggplant” the Brits use the more elegant French term “aubergine” and instead of “zucchini” they say “courgettes”.
It is said that the French have even occasionally influenced English spelling, softening the sharp American “z” into a more delicate “s” as in “mechanisation”, “rationalisation” and so on. (We in Canada sit schizophrenically between the two, using the American “z” for words such as “rationalization” but religiously spelling labour and colour with a “u”, in British style, and justify these discrepancies vehemently.)
Other popular words have been borrowed from the French such as “queue” (pronounced “kyoo”) and meaning to line up. Taken from the French “la queue” as in “la queue de cheval”, (literally the horse’s tail) but “faire la queue” in French means to line up.
A lovely anecdote: a few years ago I arrived at Waterloo station to take a Eurostar train to Paris for business. Scanning the entry gates I noticed that there were long queues at each one that was open, except for one gate which appeared open but which was curiously empty. I approached a Eurostar staff member and asked him if the gate in question was open, which he assured me it was. “So why is nobody lining up there then?” I asked, to which he replied “Oh don’t worry about them. They’re English. They like to queue”.
Despite the French seepage into British English, there are occasions when Britain’s proximity to France is decidedly forgotten, such as when the Brits pronounce a fillet (of beef) as “FILL-it”.
Cracking British Idioms
While a listing of terms may seem as exciting as reading the dictionary, I’ve included some choice terms and examples here that should keep it quite engaging along the way.
Aluminium – North Americans who refer to the stuff as “aluminum” as in aluminum foil, which Brits find very funny.
Anti-clockwise – counter-clockwise
Bespoke – custom-made, as in a “bespoke suit” or a “bespoke solution”
Biff – to hit or strike, as in “She biffed him”
Bin man – garbage collector. (NB: To throw something in the garbage is to “bin it”).
Bloke – colloquial term for a “guy”
Blooming – pronounced “bloomin” and means bloody, as in “you bloomin’ tosser!”
Blotto – very drunk
Bog standard – the British version of the North American expression “plain vanilla”. It means something that is very standard and ordinary, as in a “bog standard DVD player”.
Bollocks – means testicles but is also commonly used to mean that something is nonsense or “rubbish” as the Brits prefer to say. If someone claims something that you don’t believe you can just simply say “Bollocks!” or “What a load of bollocks!”
Bonnet – hood (of a car)
Boot – trunk (of a car), as in “car boot sale” where people evidently drive to a designated location (i.e. a field or car park) and open up their boots to sell items that they no longer want. Similar to the North American garage sale, but on wheels.
Bottle – courage, as in “He’s lost his bottle”. Often pronounced Cockney style with the glottal stop (i.e. without the ts and with a slight hesitation between the syllables) as in “BOH-uhl”.
Bung – to push, or jam. For example if you’re trying to tell someone to hammer a nail into a piece of wood you could say, “just bung it in”. Can also be used to mean “clogged” as in the drain was bunged up with hair. Also used to mean “throw” as in “Bung me my keys, mate”.
Bunk off – to be absent without permission
Car park – parking lot
Cheap as chips – very inexpensive
Chuffed – pleased, commonly used as “chuffed to bits”
Cracking – great, as in a “cracking film”. Can also use “cracker” as in “That show was a cracker”. Be careful not to use it in the plural as “crackers” evidently means “crazy”.
Faff – as in “faff about” which means to dither or waste time
Flog – to sell something
Gobsmacked – surprised, stunned, flabbergasted. Conjures up some rather unfortunate mental images though.
Higgledy-piggledy – something that is jumbled, muddled or in a state of disorder. For example you could say your desk is higgledy-piggledy or that you are standing higgledy-piggledy in a queue. Recently a British friend of mine referred to a centuries-old church that had been constructed unevenly as being “higgledy-piggledy”.
Kerb – curb (of a road)
Malarkey – nonsense, as in “What malarkey!”
Pukka – genuine, first-class, superior. Remember Pukka Orchestra?
Pull someone – to pick someone up (i.e. in a bar). For example, you may say, “I pulled last night” or “I wasn’t there to pull anybody”.
Quid – colloquial term for a pound sterling. Similar to North Americans calling a dollar a “buck”. But contrary to “buck”, “quid” always remains in the singular so that something that costs five pounds would be said to cost “five quid” (also known as a “fiver”).
Sauce – alcoholic drink, as in “on the sauce”
Snog – to kiss someone, as in “I snogged him”
Shag – to have sex with someone, as in “I shagged her” or “Want to have a shag?”
Slag – a slut. You can also use this as a verb as in “to slag someone off”, which means to attack a person verbally.
Slow up – slow down
Sod off – a rude version of the command “go away!” or “get lost!”
Throw up – to raise (metaphorically). For example instead of saying that the decision raises a number of important issues you would say the decision “throws up a number of important issues”. Sounds dashed unpleasant to me, Jeeves.
Tosser – technically means to masturbate but is more commonly used as a pejorative term meaning “idiot”. Pronounced “TOSS-ah”.
Wanker – a synonym of “tosser” and almost always used to mean “idiot”, although if you use the word “wank” as a verb the meaning is different but clear. Pronounced “WAN-kah”.
Wonky – something that is awry or not working properly. It can also mean something that is unstable or unreliable. For example you could say a wonky wheel on your car, a wonky printer or fax machine, and even wonky fruit. The Telegraph recently published an article on this subject, entitled “Lack of bees could cause wonky strawberries”:
Headline Acts
Once, at a tube station, I saw a sign on a door that read: “This door is alarmed”.
And one of my all-time personal favourite stories…
A few years ago I took a course in magazine editing at a college in London where, in one class, we were discussing clever headlines. Our instructor recounted the story of a headline he had seen years earlier in The Sun newspaper for an article about a policeman who decided to have a sex change and was then fired (“sacked”) from his job. The headline apparently read: “No Nobby Bobby Loses Jobby”.
Stella will return in a week’s time. Stay tuned. There’s much more to come!
No comments:
Post a Comment