My missus teaches 11-18 year olds (in the east riding of yorkshire) and apparently "sick" means "good" and "ram" means "bad" or "nasty/disgusting". As used in this lovely little ditty..."You're ram, you're ram, you look just like your mam".
Good list Van Zandt. I think I'll need to pick the age appropriate ones though...they are mostly from St Petersburg and Moscow though, so "tooled up" and anything related to being drunk can stay. They love the word chav as Russia has a bit of a gopnik (kinda the same thing) problem.
Mack/macking is pretty american (derived from the pimp rap term of Mack) also: "besties" = best friend having good chat = interesting to talk to.
There's also: Geezer - a man (possibly but not always a bit dodgy) moosh - mouth There's also different greetings: in London "alright? (pron, awright?) means "hello". It is not enquiry about your well being. in Liverpool, the quite specific "are you alright there?" - again "hello" In Belfast, "how about you?", again it means hello. I was interested to see blob being a word for condoms, there's also a very south London expression for having one's period which is "being on my blob" - lovely.... Possibly not one for your students.
Mush not moosh. Unless it's a cow's mouth Blert is one of my favourite scouse words, roughly equivalent to berk, but trying to teach anyone from outside Livepool the correct ehr/air sound in the middle is very difficult. Mitch
Although be forewarned there is a risk of being caught in a perpetual loop of "alright mate? Yeah you?" If you use it as your standard greeting
Safe - cool, OK can also mean take care Someone mentioned mack- I've known it by a different meaning means to have sex. Or I would have sex with them. Someone also mentioned ram I know it as knock someone out or put someone down. Easy - can mean hello or take care Blud - mate Someone mentioned po po feds and 5 o I've been hearing those since I was 11. Was gwanning - what's going on? How's it going. Bredrin - my brethren or friend, mate. Boom - can mean a lot when somethings good. Those were common around me growing up. But personally when someone called me Blud or Bredrin I would call them "bread bin". Possibly explains why I got into so much trouble. Wagwan bredbin wanna do a ting wid a man. Reminds me link or link up or linking means getting together with usually a date but could mean meeting a friend.
A lot of West Indian slang words have become quite widely used. But it still makes me chuckle when I hear an Asian kid use them, like he never saw Ali G!
You might be quite surprised at how confusing "A'right?", "How are you?" and "How's it going?" are for non-English speakers when used as greetings. The amount of times I've been asked what people should say or do in the situation. It is quite common for people to be a little bit confused when an English speaker walks past them in the office or whatever, says "howareya?" and keeps on walking before the non-English speaker gets time to tell them all about the flu they have that just won't shift. Finns aren't the best small talkers in the world...so they really struggle with the whole thing.
The foreign types that work at my place are often confused at how freely us brits greet each other with the worst swear words. "Alright *insert bad word here*?" "How do *insert another bad swear word here*" "Ay up *naughty word*"
Are you aware of how many of those originated in South Central L.A. ? Blud = blood Brethrin = brothas = brothers Was gwanning = whuz g-wann? - sounds a little like waz g-wine (hard g) which mutated a little from "waz g-ha-ine" = whats going on. I overheard someone a couple of months ago in a Starbuck's - he came in and stood in line at the counter - first thing that struck me - this white guy decked out in "ghetto" - well, his version of it, anyroad - had this white baseball hat (turned backwards isn't ghetto anymore people) and a white track-suit. It stuck me as odd cause he had elements of what was 80's ghetto here with things from five years ago, lol. It was just this combination I'd not been used to seeing - on anyone! Lets just say...I knew he warn't a local. After he picked up his drink, he saw a group of people he apparently knew - he kept saying "wag one" ... wag one" Huh? Did I hear it right? ( I did loose an eardrum years ago) I listened to him go on with his friends for a bit - something wasn't right. I knew he had to be from the UK and I thought I could pick out London qualies here and there. So I asked him where he was from when a couple of his tablemates wandered off. Sure enough. You can take da mon out of Hammersmith but you can't take Hammersmith outta da mon. Wag one... OH! ... I see! He's trying to say "whaz g-wine" I almost choked on my cappuccino. The irony... I think I'm going to go away. Very far away.
In Enfield where I grew up there was quite a noticeable West Indian, Turkish and Greek population. Everyone used them.
I'm afraid you are wrong about South California. Band and bredrin started in Jamaica. It became a US/UK thing I believe mainly around the time of the Vietnam war. As Black soldiers would call each other Blud and Bredrin a lot of it was moved on to black power and gangs after the war. Then used more commonly as part of urban culture. So it predates south cali. Originally they are Rasta words I believe.
If Russians have a word for Chav there is the Chatham facelift. Chatham is a town in Kent and it's a term for the tightly pulled back hairstyle for the female chav. From Van Zandt's list borrasic is a Cockney rhyming slang term. Boracic lint - skint.
no, these are all jamaican. jamaican patois was popularised in the 1970s in the UK with the rise of british jamaican dub poets like Linton (whos poetry is in the national curriculum options in some parts of the country) in response to the "sus" laws. @Bozza, some history for you there if you're going to be teaching slangs.
"our kid" (pron: "arr kid") = sibling, typically a brother "slash" = urinate "minger" = unattractive person, typically female "minging" = unpleasant "bobbins" = not very good "tab" = cigarette "yorkshire caviar" = mushy peas "wigan kebab" = pie on a stick "slapper" = promiscuous lady "ruck" = fight "barney" = fight "churn up" = fight "mullered" = drunk...although has alternative meaning of "badly beaten" on occasion "newted" = drunk "dogs bollocks" = very good "banjoed" = hit very hard/beaten up badly "given a shoeing" = beaten up
!!! I'm finding this amasing. As I'd had far more exposure to American black culture than the African-Caribbean culture in England - I'd assumed a lot of the crossover ethnic slang I've heard here and there coming from the U.K. to've originated, somehow, from black, urban US. I wasn't aware there to be such a large lexicon of oddly similar slang common to the two groups - with just enough difference to make the one sound like a bad-imitation of the other. There is a Jamacian portion of the population and no doubt there's been influence (more in the late 70's, 80's) but its a relatively much smaller ratio than was/is the case with England and just how much of urban American black slang and so forth comes from the Caribbean - I can't say. Here everything is absorbed ( in a Borg sort of way ) and any pure roots are stripped away, or so it seems. But there is a cross-over of urban American black cultural trappings (including slang) presently occurring in the UK as well, isn't there? I've no doubt about Bozza's grasp on the history of the subject, having seen some of his amasing collections in his music posts but if I'd an inkling the slang terminology in question to have an independent origination elsewhere, I'd not gone on about it...Yanks correcting forum UK members on proper Rude Boy slang would be...trollish. EDIT: On second thought - it'd be a great idea.
