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#26 2021-11-30 08:17:17

A Fine Sadness
Member
Posts: 3009

Re: British insults

Interesting.  'The Firm' (is it called?) has Gary Oldman referring to his opponents as 'top girls'.  Very sarcastic, though. 
We were frightened of girls at thirteen.  Hence our constant ridicule of them.

 

#27 2021-11-30 08:19:28

A Fine Sadness
Member
Posts: 3009

Re: British insults

Mm, one of my special subject tutors, Professor I.F.A. Bell would refer to a slack undergraduate of either sex as 'a dozy tart'.

 

#28 2021-12-04 07:17:12

A Fine Sadness
Member
Posts: 3009

Re: British insults

Returning to Patrick's original posting, 'prat' was what I called some leftist type in the waiting room for chemo and nice, cosy chats with oncologists for those riddled with cancer or who, like my wife, had not long had a tit removed.  I was in no mood to be trifled with.  So, being deep in muttered conversation with the chap next to me about NHS food and what-not, leftist type (wife - or 'partner' - in purple DMs, prat in sandals) jumps in and tells me what an ignorant fellow I am.  'Wanker' was the first word that sprang to my mind; 'prat' had to suffice.  It's mild in the UK now, very mild. 
Lenny Bruce used to ask 'Why 'fuck you?'  Fucking is a pleasurable activity.  Why not say 'unfuck you?'  Lenny knew a thing or two.

 

#29 2021-12-04 08:10:08

woofboxer
Devil's Ivy Advocate
From: The Lost County of Middlesex
Posts: 7959

Re: British insults

That scene in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy where Smiley meets up with a retired female colleague he hasn’t seen for years and when he asks her how she is; ‘I’m seriously underfucked George’ is the reply.


'I'm not that keen on the Average Look .......ever'. 
John Simons

Achievements: banned from the Ivy Style FB Group

 

#30 2021-12-08 17:54:58

Patrick
Member
Posts: 2651

Re: British insults

How about "pillock"?

And what of "bint"?


Otter : Take it easy, I'm pre-law.
Boon : I thought you were pre-med.
Otter : What's the difference?

 

#31 2021-12-09 00:35:57

A Fine Sadness
Member
Posts: 3009

Re: British insults

'Pillock' I don't know the derivation of but it still gets used.  On a par with 'prat'.  'Bint', I think, is Urdu in origin.  Len Deighton wrote a novel called 'Bomber', in which one of the characters, a randy Welshman, is called 'Binty' Jones because he's a skirt-chaser.  So, 'a cracking-looking bint' is someone like Taylor Swift or Madonna in her prime.  Or Greta Garbo.

 

#32 2021-12-09 01:56:06

RobbieB
Member
Posts: 2212

Re: British insults

I'm driving around in a hire car and I usually give a running commentary on other people's driving. I noticed during one busy journey that I used the terms Prick, Dick, Wanker the c word wasn't used as the driving standard was not bad compared with Finland where all men consider themselves to be either rally drivers or Formula 1 exponents.


'I am a closet optimist' Leonard Cohen.

 

#33 2021-12-09 02:07:50

RobbieB
Member
Posts: 2212

Re: British insults

I used the term tosser for drivers not keeping up with the traffic


'I am a closet optimist' Leonard Cohen.

 

#34 2021-12-09 02:32:38

A Fine Sadness
Member
Posts: 3009

Re: British insults

My wife drives, I don't.  She's an excellent driver but her stream of invective does credit to her Liverpool dock worker roots.  A favourite, when someone is trying to park, 'You could get the f***ing Queen Mary in there!' 
We used to go and stay with a Liverpool cousin who lived in Birmingham.  Unfailingly, to her hapless husband when he bolloxed something up, 'Les, yer pillock'. 
The 'aunts' came from Liverpool to our wedding (not Everton supporters).  One looked me up and down through a cloud of fag smoke and said, 'I'm sure our Margaret could've done better 'n you...'

 

#35 2021-12-09 02:40:51

A Fine Sadness
Member
Posts: 3009

Re: British insults

Patrick, how about 'div' or 'divvie'?  Very Merseyside.  In Salford, where I froze in a bedsit during the winter of 1981, something was not 'minging' but ''anging', meaning exceptionally undesirable. 
Current teenage slang is beyond me.  'Fit' is still used for an attractive member of either sex - but a girl being 'peng'?  'Vadge' is used to describe the bits.  I can get my head around that.  But I stopped listening very hard when things became 'wicked', 'pants' or - annoyingly - 'cool' (for which, see a separate thread on the hi-jacking of that jazz expression). 
American expressions predominate in England.  'I'm good' is one that really gets on my threepenny bits.

 

#36 2021-12-09 02:52:52

A Fine Sadness
Member
Posts: 3009

Re: British insults

A story oft-told about a WW2 squaddie attempting, without success, to repair a motor vehicle...

'Sir, sorry to have to tell you the fuckin' fucker's fuckin' fucked'.

 

#37 2021-12-09 02:55:34

A Fine Sadness
Member
Posts: 3009

Re: British insults

Oh, and a strictly personal favourite, often directed at the deeds and doings of my wife's family, is 'Fuck 'em...  fuck 'em in the ear...' varied with 'Fuck you and fuck the horse you rode in on' - which, I freely admit, are purely Stateside in origin.

 

#38 2021-12-09 05:57:00

RobbieB
Member
Posts: 2212

Re: British insults

Travelling on a bus. The driver just shouted out Twat to a car trying to overtake in a built up area.


'I am a closet optimist' Leonard Cohen.

 

#39 2021-12-09 06:26:26

A Fine Sadness
Member
Posts: 3009

Re: British insults

Apparently the Russians have the best, the most scabrous obscenities going.  We need a Russian Ivyist on board.

 

#40 2021-12-09 07:26:49

A Fine Sadness
Member
Posts: 3009

Re: British insults

And for true refinement, return to Pinter, in which a character is described as 'a jam-rag vendor...  a minge-juice bottler...'

 

#41 2021-12-09 07:28:45

A Fine Sadness
Member
Posts: 3009

Re: British insults

'A fucking shit-cake baker...'  'No-Man's Land' again.

 

#42 2021-12-10 08:23:22

A Fine Sadness
Member
Posts: 3009

Re: British insults

Patrick must think we are a terribly foul-mouthed bunch over here.  I think cursing is probably a national pastime.  Even Captain Pugwash wasn't totally innocent with his cries of 'Odds Kittkins!'  But then he did have Seaman Staines and Master Bates to contend with.

 

#43 2021-12-16 09:15:50

A Fine Sadness
Member
Posts: 3009

Re: British insults

Anyone come across the insult 'twonk'?

 

#44 2022-05-02 14:31:00

Patrick
Member
Posts: 2651

Re: British insults

I referred to someone as a "prat" the other day, to the considerable amusement of a lady friend.

As a Yank I am cautious about deploying British slang. I don't want people to think I'm a wanker.

By the way there are large sections of the U.S. where calling someone a Yank is gonna mean trouble. Not just the South, either.

Last edited by Patrick (2022-05-02 14:34:29)


Otter : Take it easy, I'm pre-law.
Boon : I thought you were pre-med.
Otter : What's the difference?

 

#45 2022-05-03 02:55:36

AFS
Member
Posts: 2740

Re: British insults

I fell into a brief conversation with a young woman on Saturday afternoon, who referred to her brother as a See You Next Tuesday.  It came as something of a surprise to me as most English females, whilst capable of swearing like troopers, dockers and fishwives, tend to steer clear of, and be mortally offended by, anything referring to their own genitalia.  My elder daughter, however, thinking about it, pulls none of those kind of punches.

 

#46 2022-05-03 04:37:18

Patrick
Member
Posts: 2651

Re: British insults

I had to think about that for a minute. (First cup of coffee.)

Aha!


Otter : Take it easy, I'm pre-law.
Boon : I thought you were pre-med.
Otter : What's the difference?

 

#47 2022-05-03 05:06:53

AFS
Member
Posts: 2740

Re: British insults

The most deplorable kind of English female (often a Liberal Democrat or Green Party voter) is the one who says 'sugar' when she means 'shit' - and still goes red in the face.

Now one of the things to get right
Is when to say shit and when shite
For there's many a chap
Who will fall back on crap
Which is vulgar, offensive and trite

Hardly Henry James, but we can't have everything in this life.

 

#48 2022-05-03 05:10:08

AFS
Member
Posts: 2740

Re: British insults

The first man to fuck Little Sophie
Has just won the Krafft-Ebing trophy
Plus ten thousand quid
Which for what the chap did
Will be widely denounced as a low fee

I'm ashamed to admit that our GP is always referred to me as 'Little Sophie', she being a strapping, very middle class, six footer.

 

#49 2022-09-23 21:16:51

Dulouz
Member
Posts: 196

Re: British insults

Indeed proper Merseyside is ''div' or 'divvie''.

Also from Liverpool is woolly back and plastic scouser, referring to those who live near to Liverpool, but are not quite Liverpudlians. There's sheep-shagger too, which refers to those from Wales.

 

#50 2023-07-01 05:57:11

Patrick
Member
Posts: 2651

Re: British insults

I was fishing in Prattsville, N.Y. recently. Town motto: Don't Be a Pratt


Otter : Take it easy, I'm pre-law.
Boon : I thought you were pre-med.
Otter : What's the difference?

 

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