All slang is a metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.  ~  G.K. Chesterton

Most Americans will never have heard or used some of the words I grew up with.  Although the words I most hear used around here these days are fuck and fucking.  Catch-all expressions for the chronically stupid and uneducated.  So; sprinkle some of these colloquialisms into your lexicon.

• • Arse           ~  backside, a stupid ineffectual idiot
  • Aye            ~  yes
  • Bairn          ~  very young child
  • Baccy         ~  tobacco
  • Bait            ~  packed lunch
  • Beck           ~  stream
  • Bog            ~  toilet
  • Brasso        ~  an adjective for very bad beer, metal polish
  • Cack           ~  shit
  • Cadge        ~  borrow and beg
  • Canny        ~  pretty damn good, also clever and prudent
  • Clarts         ~  runny mud
  • Class          ~  beautiful
  • Divvent      ~  don’t
  • Doon         ~  down
  • Dyke          ~  ditch, unattractive lesbian
  • Fettle         ~  fix
  • Geordie     ~  Native of Newcastle upon Tyne
  • Gob           ~  mouth
  • Gormless   ~  stupidly lacking in ability and initiative
  • Gully          ~  big sharp knife
  • Haporth     ~  next to nothing, almost worthless, contraction of half-penny-worth
  • Hoy            ~  throw
  • Knackered  ~  tired, weary, broken
  • Lug             ~  ear
  • Lum            ~ chimney
  • Marra         ~  very good friend
  • Minging     ~  disgustingly smelly
  • Mortal        ~  very drunk, also ‘mortalious’.
  • Nebby        ~  nosy and intrusively curious
  • Netty          ~  an earth closet toilet, any toilet
  • Nick            ~  steal
  • Nowt          ~  nothing
  • Numpty      ~  ineffectual idiot
  • Pallatic        ~  very drunk
  • Scran          ~  food
  • Sneck         ~  hasp or catch
  • Spelk          ~  splinter
  • Stotting      ~  bouncing, as in ‘the rain is stotting down’
  • Telt             ~   told
  • Tyke            ~  a Yorkshireman or small boy
  • Wazzock     ~  annoyingly stupid ineffectual idiot
  • Wanker       ~ arrogant and contemptible ineffectual idiot, a chronic masterbator
  • Wor            ~  our, or my
  • Yakker        ~  manual worker

Some say that all slang is bad.  And if the Queen doesn’t use a word, then neither should I.  All I know is that I like to surprise and baffle Americans with my very English vocabulary.

~

jack collier

jackcollier7@talktalk.net

it’s only the Union Jack when it’s flown on the jackstaff of a warship