English Slang

Neon Knight Wed 4 Dec - 23:38

N = specific to northern England; NW = specific to north-west England
Most of these would not be used in polite conversation but others are just informal.

hi-ya - hello
ta-rah - goodbye (NW)
tah - thanks
soz - sorry (N?)

gob - mouth
fag - cigarette
slutch - watery mud (NW)
yonks ago - years ago (N)

nutter - wild, reckless person
slag - promiscuous girl
dizzy bitch - silly, unfocussed woman
skenner - cross eyed person, often meaning 'inaccurate' and "I skenned it" - "I missed it" (NW)

jammy - lucky
chuffed - proud (NW)
jiggered - tired (NW)
knackered - exhausted or ruined

nick - steal
mither - fuss unnecessarily (NW)
moider - annoy (Wales, NW)
peg it / bomb it / can it - run fast (N?)
wag it / wack it - play truant from school (NW)
jack it in - give up doing a task or project
jack-all / sod-all - nothing
sod it - "never mind it"

bottle - courage (from drinking alcohol to gain courage) and "bottle it" - to lose one's nerve
pissed / bladdered - drunk (from alcohol causing increased urination)
scrike - cry e.g. "She was scriking her eyes out" [From Old Norse skríkja (“to scream”) or Old English
scric, literally "bird with a shrill call," referring to a thrush, possibly imitative of its call. Attested from c.
1573. - yourdictionary.com] (NW)

Sary Fri 6 Dec - 3:11

I am only familiar with dizzy bitch, fag and nutter.
slutch is the same as sluch , something that we have plenty of around here!
Ta-rah sounds cool, kinda like toddle loo?
Most of these slang words I have never heard of.
Is it common to hear them spoken in England?

Neon Knight Fri 6 Dec - 23:30

I would have spelled "slutch" without the 't' myself, but that's how I found an on-line example of it. I suppose slang words can be spelled any way.

Yeah, "tah-rah" is like "toodle-oo" but "toodle-oo" is a bit humourous.

Most of them are common or fairly common but a few of them you would probably only hear in their specific areas, and even then only occasionally: yonks ago, skenner, moider, scrike. These are mostly used by children and teenagers: soz, can it, bomb it.

Neon Knight Fri 3 Jan - 0:54

See if you can understand this broad northern speech sentence:

It's geet its yed fast int' gate. Ast at gerr it owt some road.

Sary Sat 4 Jan - 20:23

I have no idea. Geet, yed, ast, owt int ?
Something about a road and a gate.
What does it say?

OsricPearl Sun 5 Jan - 22:00

Neon Knight wrote:See if you can understand this broad northern speech sentence:

It's geet its yed fast int' gate. Ast at gerr it owt some road.

It's great if you'd fasten the gate. Else it will let lose on the road. ...? Scratching

Neon Knight Sun 5 Jan - 23:52

It says:

It's got its head stuck in the gate. I'll have to get it out somehow.

OsricPearl Mon 6 Jan - 0:34

Neon Knight wrote: It says:

It's got its head stuck in the gate. I'll have to get it out somehow.

Haha. Not even close!

Neon Knight Fri 10 Jan - 1:09

That sentence comes from a joke legend about the town of Westhoughton in Lancashire:

http://www.westhoughtonhistorygroup.org.uk/Westhoughton_History_Group/History.html

"Another story tells that a farmer in Westhoughton found his cow had got its head stuck in a five barred gate (or fence), and rather than cut the gate, the farmer cut the cow's head off, since the cow cost less than the gate. There are pictures in existence of a frock-coated farmer sawing off the head of a cow unfortunate enough to be trapped by the neck in a farm gate.

The caption reads It’s getten its yed fast in’t gate. I’st a’t’ get it eaut some road.

There is no evidence to substantiate this story which has circulated around for about two hundred years; but the story seems to have caught the imagination of some mischievous journalist and has been embellished for generations."

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