I constantly play online scrabble and am fascinated with words used by opponents that I have not previously come across and it is clear some words are either archaic or just out of fashion. For example it is rare that anyone would be referred to as a cad or a bounder these days.
When I was at school it was common to use the word rill to describe a small stream. I left school 47 years ago and I don’t think I have heard the word being used or recall seeing it in any work of fiction.
I used it in a recent game of scrabble but didn’t score me too many points but it was at the end of a game that I won. I am not advocating the wider use of rill but would be interested in other examples of words you may have used in the past but no longer use.
Words no longer in fashion/not used
by 256 Comments
Restaurant. Office. Commute.
Gig, concert, show.
Out.
Desk. Mixer. Cab. Wedge.
I miss it all.
Oh I love potatoes.
Ministerial competence
Runnel. As in a drain or a gutter on farmland or along a hedge. Very similar to rill as it happens.
I’d heard it used a lot as a kid in Northumberland amongst the farmers my Dad knew. It’s not a local dialect word but I don’t think it I’ve heard it or used myself since until just now.
Runnel: a muddy drain on farmland. Oh the glamorous life I have led.
Mrs M hails from that part of the world and comes out with no end of moon-man language from up there.
Lowp… Spoach… Ginnel… Coal-mine. Absolute gibberish.
Plodge… Divvent… Proggy Mat… Shuggy Boat… Job Centre.
‘Proggy mat’ = the carpet Greg Lake insisted went on tour with him.
Oho!
Shuggy Boat = Antonio Fargas’s yacht
I was introduced to “ginnel” a few years ago when visiting a pal up in Sheffield. A few of us were staying in an Air BnB house with a ginnel to the back garden. A word never used by anyone down here in the Home Counties. Still in use in Sheffield, I think.
Definitely still used in Yorkshire, but we have lots of words that make no sense to anybody not from God’s Own Country.
A Ginnel is a Loke where I’m from.
It’s a twitten in Sussex, or, at least, Lewes.
or a jitty in Leicestershire
Or a jitteh in Notts.
Cuntstruck: as in “he’s cuntstruck him” a bloke who couldn’t get enough of the opposite sex.
I hear that quite a lot. The first syllable anyway.
Round my way it didn’t describe a ladies’ man, it was used for someone who had become completely infatuated with a new partner.
@gatz me too.
I love that one Baron – gonna use that. Never heard that before.
Wotcha! Not sure if acceptable in Scrabble. Once was ubiquitous though not said by myself much. Too posh, well lower middle class at least.
What a splendid word, Baron.
It ought to be the name of the new AC/DC album.
Nincompoop
Nincompoop is used regularly by me and the kids.
A mate of mine came out with a blast from the past at the footy a couple of years ago when he called one of the players a pot knob. Hadn’t heard that since I was a kid.
For a put down that’s gone completely out of fashion, try Wally.
Nincompoop is such a great word.
NB. Been called Wally many times down the years ( see surname ).
There used to be a thing at Sheffield City Hall in the 80s where there’d be regular shouts of ‘WALLY!’ around the auditorium prior to the band coming on (not sure if it happened elsewhere, cos that’s the only place I saw bands until the late 80s). I got told by an older bloke that it all started when a kid with Down Syndrome (not the words used in his explanation) became separated from his brother (the aforementioned Wally) and leaned over the balcony shouting for him. Clearly it entertained the punters so much that it became a ritual.
This explanation might be a load of bollocks, of course, but it’s what I was told.
Used in Brum too
Uncertain about the Down’s link, which seems harsh even for the day, but this is what wiki says:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wally_(anonymous)
I had a chum of a chum with me at the Reading festival in 1975, who confirmed the use of the word as a generic surname, having been involved with the nascent new age traveller scene. I wonder whatever happened to Russell Wally?
I remember the name being shouted out at the 75 Reading Festival too, there was also the band at the time called Wally.
I seem to recall it was also a dialect word for a sausage, but I’m not sure where.
A new fish and chip shop opened up a year or so ago here, in North London, and one of the things they sold was a wally. It turned out to be a pickled gherkin. I’d never heard them called this, but someone I know who has lived in London all his life said it was the usual name for them when he was growing up.
That’s it not sausage but a gherkin.
I knew it was an extra at a fish n chip shop.
My Dad was born in Hackney.
He has always referred to large gherkins sold in chip shops as ‘wallies’.
I cheerfully and freely admit that me and my chums used to yell “Wally!” at the top of our voices from our tent at Glastonbury, starting at about midnight, stifling our stoned gigglings, and waiting for someone somewhere in the same or a nearby field to pick it up and yell the same in return. Once we’d recovered from the inevitable subsequent breath-limiting and asthmatically gasped chortlings, we’d wait for a suitable gap in any ongoing chain of “Wallies” before starting it off all over again. Good for up to half an hour of inanely amusing stupidity when fuelled by sufficient red leb and other sundries. No idea where we got the idea from, but it was deffo a festival thing.
Isle of Wight Festival 1969 or 1970 was the start of it, I think.
I thought it came from the Weeley festival in the 1970s?
Wally from Weeley?
Certainly a Festival (Reading has also been suggested).
A lost dog apparently
It was before Weeley (1971), I’m sure.
It may have started at one of the free Hyde Park concerts in ’69. I distinctly remember it being shouted at the Isle of Wight festival in 1970.
“Roundel”, as in a disc/medallion. No idea why that word has stuck with me but I remember my favourite English teacher using it and I’ve just noticed over the years that no one EVER uses it. I have seen it precisely once, in a display in Glasgow Cathedral!
Actually I think Roundel was used to describe the transfers that were affixed to my airfix model airplanes.
Only the disc-like ones on the wing surfaces and the sides of the fuselage, not the teensie weensie ones for tiny swastika kill markers, tailfin numbers and so on. They were known as ‘little fuckers’, and required application with the tip of a decent small paint brush.
Hi, Stan!
It was vital to get those twiddly little ones at a slight but nagging angle for the full shaming effect – cf making the transparent bits cloudy with glue.
I read recently that Airfix refused to include swastika decals for their models – I hadn’t ever twigged that when I was making them in the 60s.
But then you get to draw them on.
Nyerrrrrrrrrrr DUGGADUGGADUGGA!
I am 47.
That’s where I first heard of it and it was a commonly seen word when I was a model maker.
The one place it’s commonly seen these days is on the Tube. The red circle with the horizontal blue line is known as a roundel.
Roundels still gets an outing, specifically from Mod Clothing suppliers.
The last parka I bought was advertised as “with roundel on sleeve”.
It’s basically the RAF bullseye, which lines up with the airfix reference
The Roundel is or, more realistically, was a mod cafe in Scarborough, just near the Stephen Joseph.
If you worked in public transport, you would think otherwise. That’s the correct term for the type of logo exemplified by the London Transport sign. Remember the ICI logo? That was a roundel too.
Anyone for a roundelay?
Oi oi roundelay
Wow. I am neither a model plane maker nor a mod nor a London underground enthusiast, which is probably why I’ve never seen this word being used.
Forsooth, beef-witted brigand and Morrow Personage Mike Holloway is thrice beholden to beat combo Flintlock.
To flip this to archaic words that have somehow come back into fashion, has anyone else noticed “methinks” being taken up by the internet generation? Where did that come from? I remember loving that word in a Robin Hood comic I loved when I was wee, but I can’t remember seeing it used anywhere for about forty years, until I started seeing it on Facebook etc. What’s with that?!
Yep methinks definitely reappeared.
What about Forthwith? Replaced by pronto or still used?
Oggie.
A pastie. Not sure if it’s commonly used in Plymouth any more, but it was when I were a lad. Oi oi oi.
Linny.
A small but robust stone built shed; it could be attached directly to the house, but could also be free standing, and rarely they could be attached one to the other. They would be scattered within the curtilage of the garden. My auntie Lil at Dartington had three of them in her garden. One was attached to the house, and had another attached to it, and there was one by the stream at the bottom of the garden. From personal experience I can report that one of them in particular (the attached attached one) was the home of spiders the size of your hand (I was only 4 at the time).
Oggie.
Excellent @fentonsteve! Just one more.
Oh, go on, then…
Oggie.
Oi Oi Oi
There’s a lovely song by Cyril Tawney called The Oggie Man.
When I was a nipper, I would go to Richmond with my mum for the late night shopping on Fridays nights. The parade of shops either side of the entrance to the tube station featured a shop that sold Cornish pasties. If I was a good boy, she’d buy me one (I remember them being delicious!). It was called The Tiddie Oggie Shop.
How about “apeth”? As in, “Spangles don’t cost thrupence ha’penny, ya daft apeth.”
Doesn’t apeth derive from half-penny?
Half penny worth.
Unless it’s a Shakespearean word for unkind imitation: “Sirrah, you apeth my rude tongue most unmannerly”
Score at least one for you here, Moosey. I googled.
Spelt ‘ha’porth’ round our way.
My late mum (from Dublin) used that version.
Farthing. Nice little wren on the obverse side.
My partner gave me a wren pendant on a chain for my birthday. The part of the coin not in relief has been cut away, to leave the rim, the wren and the date.
They seem to be widely available, and are rather lovely. Various Irish coins, too.
I actually remember having to do sums at primary school using pounds, shillings, pence, halfpennies and farthings….kids today, eh..!?
Bivouac aka Bivvy.
Everyone still knows what a tent is, though.
Treasury tags
India tags!
Ring Reinforcements
Oh, I say!
French curves, Rotring pens, Letraset, Letraset boners. . .
Cow gum.
Electric erasers.
Moose will have something to say about boners
Just clench, man!
We are going to a dance
Get hep daddio, and go to the hop!
Treasury tags have made a comeback in my workplace in preference to keeping papers together in covid-distributing plastic binders. Shit be old-school.
Subfusc.
Mufti, shufti, ghanzi.
Khazi.
My dad was in Egypt during the war, so shufti and khazi were a feature of my childhood. Also aiwa, meaning yes, and imshi, meaning piss off, much used on Cairo street kids – and me, if I was being annoying.
Shufti I must have got from Dad, and I know I also say ‘let’s have a dekko’. ‘Gen’ and ‘duff gen’ too. I must sound like one of Armstrong & Miller’s airmen.
As an aside, I really enjoyed Stefan Fatsis book “Word Freak” which describes his attempts to become a nationally ranked Scrabble player in the US, and some of the pro players he encountered.
Thanks Fortune. That sounds like a very entertaining nd slightly scary read.
https://aux.avclub.com/stefan-fatsis-word-freak-heartbreak-triumph-genius-1798196595
The slippery slope of Scrabble, eh?
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/08/06/word-freak
In the same vein as wally – people used to say twerp and div (or divvy).
Pranny
Prat. Or pratt. Such a toothless insult, only one notch up from silly billy.
Prefer twat myself. As do you, I should think.
How do you do it? With a breadboard?
Been puzzling over this for 24 hours but still not with you, old boy.
Twat yourself? Passes the time on these dark evenings.
Aha!
herbert
My dad’s favourite description other people generally when he’s driving is “Fucking irresponsible herberts”
“Herbert” is still in my vocabulary as a general description for disreputable people.
“A right bunch of Herberts” or “Sort yourselves out, you Herberts” “Look at them ‘Erberts over there”. I even got a Latvian carpenter I used to work with using the word.
I don’t know why, but the use of the word Herbert in this way always makes me laugh. To the point that I couldn’t use it myself because I’d laugh before I got to the end of my own sentence, like wot some of the comics used to do on the Comedians in the 70s.
warmint
Calling someone a Berk was quite common.
Until it’s Cockney Rhyming Slang root became common knowledge.
Berkshire Hunt
Not quite so inoffensive when you know that is it …
Probably bad taste, but no-one is called a Joey anymore (except a baby kangaroo).
It seems everyone aged between 8 and 12 saw that particular episode of Blue Peter, and the insults began the day after
Only slightly less unpleasantly “Benny” was used as a term of abuse between 1975 and about 1983. (Sorry I can’t be more precise)
Double Bubble that one:
Benny – a bit thick (like the bobble hat bloke in Crossroads)
Benny – abbr. Bender (although why calling some after a Wimpy Sausage is such a bad thing …)
I’d never heard of Joey Deacon.
http://jvtv.co.uk/joey-deacon
The stuff you learn on the AW!
Kids can be real bastards eh?
…and grown-ups, judging by the bloke who wrote that page.
Joey was a mainstay amongst insults during my school years. To further prove that my school years were full of insults and terms that were absolutely shameful, spaz, spacker and flid were regularly bandied round, and for anyone who felt cheated by someone, tha’s Jewed me would be the accusation of choice.
Whilst I’ve never heard any of those, or anything remotely as bad, coming out of the mouths of any kids round here these days, the outcome of the Brexit referendum and some of the comments on local Facebook groups suggest that the mental capacity or common decency of some of those kids on the 70s playgrounds of Barnsley hasn’t improved much.
Actually, me and the missus once found ourselves on a bus full of school kids and I remarked to her that they were nothing like when we were their age. When she asked why I referred her to all the steamed up windows up and down the bus, with not one picture of a nob!
After the Falklands war, word went out to the British forces stationed there that they shouldn’t refer to the Falklanders as ‘Bennys’, because wearing a woolly hat was not a sign of them being ‘slow’. The forces responded by referring to them as ‘Stills’. ‘Why Stills, Private?’ ‘Still Bennys, sir’.
Not because they were disposed to say that there was something happening here, but what it is ain’t exactly clear?
Benny = Benzedrine (Amphetamine Sulphate) – half of which is in the form of its dextrorotatory ‘Dexedrine’ isomer – ‘Dexys: Midnight Runners’ = Black Bombers – half white, half black capsules of the stuff. 500 mg. Huge fun when you’re twenty one. Oh yes.
I love archaic and disappearing language, plying a troth to promulgate their dissemination.
Oh, I say
Fanny. In the British sense of meaning a woman’s genitalia.
Who still says that?
Only heard now as part of the expression “Ask my ——-“
Isn’t that fanny in the American sense, meaning derriere? (there’s another one…unless you’re French)
Of course fanny is still heard in Glesga as a term of abuse.
Good god no!
You can even drink your tea out of a fanny. As an aside, I went for a Google Street Maps walk around childhood haunts recently, and this shop is where the barbers I went to as a child use d to be.
https://www.gieitlaldy.com/products/boris-johnson-fanny-mug
I’ll just leave this here:
I don’t remember anyone saying ‘sweet F A’ for a while. I always assumed that Sweet Fanny Adams was just a bowdlerisation of Sweet Fuck All, but it turns out there was a real Sweet Fanny Adams, the child victim of a particularly horrible murder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Adams
Pudenda doesn’t get bandied about much these days. Last I remember was in an article relation to the word rosebud in Citizen Kane which was the name supposedly employed by William Randolph Hearst for his mistresse’s naughty bits.
Fanny by gaslight. Many a schoolboy snigger.
What’s that smell?
Gassy by fanlight.
Still regularly used here – as in stop fannying around.
Plonker. As in “You plonker, Rodney”.
I saw Nicholas Lyndhurst buying a pair of combat trousers in LA. He looked at me with a face that said “If you dare say it I’ll come over there and shove these down your throat.” I just nodded.
I believe you’ll hear Steve McClaren* refer to people as “such a Rodney plonker.”
* According to Bob Mortimer
I use many of these archaisms. We have recently had to-the-death Scrabble games, and “fanny”, “mufti”, and “roundel” all emerged. It’s all excitement in our house.
That made me google the legendary Scrabble board from Steptoe & Son. I was not disappointed.
You didn’t often get “spunk” on the TV in 1972. After all, it would ruin the walnut finish.
(nut… finish… stop it)
I remember a very similar Scrabble scene in Man about the House.
“Privit” ? That’s not how you spell it. Void game!
Sorry or I resign
Fools and Horses regularly used Plonker, Berk, Wally, Pranny and Prannet. All have made their way into the English lexicon (they may not arise from the pen of John Sullivan, but he was surely instrumental in popularising them).
The phrase “Dipstick” is also heard in Fools and Horses, but I believe that to have come from Dukes Of Hazard. Sheriff Roscoe P Coltrane (coogie oogie oogie) was always calling his deputy Enos a dipstick.
I’m not sure who was the most inept US Police Officer: Roscoe or Buford T Justice
(I may have spent too much time as a kid watching telly …)
Although I was born and brought up not a million miles from Billericay, I never heard the word prannet until the SADARARH came up with it.
Point of information: perfect use of the word “pranny” on The Troggs Tape.
The gift that keeps on giving …
“And later on BBC1 it’s Jim’ll Fix It. Now though it’s time for Rolf Harris Cartoon Time”
“And later on BBC1 something other than Mrs Brown’s Boys”
Naff off, among other words. was supposedly invented by the writers of Porridge to get round using actual swear words before the watershed. Then Princess Anne said it to a presd photographer I believe. Thereafter it became a posher, soft form of swearing as in naff orf. Perhaps posh types still say it.
Naff (according to either Clement or La Frenais) was actually in use in some Prisons – slag for Not Available For F**king.
Not sure how true that is – before I heard that story, I always thought describing something as “Naff” suggested it was a bit rubbish.
….and it was excellent in Twin Peaks
Naff is another archaic word no longer used. Another seemingly inoffensive term derived from something a bit stronger. Abbreviation of “No Fucking Good/Use”.
Princess Anne was merely taking it closer to it’s original usage.
We still use NFG in the engineering trade. We had to change label on the racking in the lab from “NFG” to “To Be Repaired” because, apparently, they no longer teach it to the young ‘uns at college.
I thought naff was a polari word?
That’s what I’ve heard.
Naff is still in everyday use at my in-laws.
See also: coloured.
See also my mum’s use of ‘queer’, which she uses in the pre-modern, rather than post-modern sense. For example “Queer seaside town” by which, after a bit of 20 questions detective work, she meant “Brighton.”
Naff (or naph) is a polari word. How gay slang gets into prison I’ve no idea. The library books, perhaps.
Tell ‘im, Jools!
Ohhh, me lallies!
Oooo, inne bold? He’s bold Jools…
Nante riah for me these days. Big thews still though.
Heartface!
I remember a book in the 80s called the guide to naff sex or something similar. Various uncool no-nos in the bedroom (or elsewhere). Don’t have tissues to hand by the bed for wiping purposes was one example. Went along with the Sloane Ranger Handbook. I think naff was quite popular at that time as a term.
“Nerk ” was presumably used to replace that fine all purpose term of off nice/ endearment, “cnut” (anagram.).
Fred Nerk was from the Goons.
Bookreaders will be fascinated to learn that Lawrence Durrell took time out from molesting zoo animals to write a four-part trilogy called CUNT.
“Don’t have tissues to hand by the bed for wiping purposes …” What are curtains for, after all?
Enough of this poppycock and twaddle
A stream of Balderdash and Piffle.
(more of this sort of thing)
@stevet how do you still play online Scrabble (tee em)? EA took it offline and replaced with a crap version for 8-year-olds. I haven’t found an acceptable substitute, though I can still play with myself (hurr).
@mikethep – I play it on my kindle it’s not called scrabble it is Word Chums but exactly the same.
It shows your percentage of wins, best word table, best game table per week.
Very addictive. Drives the missus barmy as in ‘are you playing your bloody word games again?’ but I find it very therapeutic
@mikethep – the classic scrabble is available on an app run by Scopely. You will see a version that has unnecessary bells and whistles – but you can ask them for “Classic Mode” in the settings and you have everything you need (apart from the Teacher feature).
Thanks! I’ve downloaded it, but I can’t find Classic Mode in the settings. How do I get there?
Edit: not to worry, found it!
Bless!
Wireless, as in radio broadcast receiver.
The Golden Age of DAB…. not quite as romantic
I suggest a peruse of this, it pays to increase your word power.
Let’s bring some of these back.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VPBMA1ciCNgC&pg=PA2&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y
“Ruddy”, used in place of “bloody” as in “I worked ruddy hard today.”
I suppose I picked it up from my Dad and it never occurred to me that it was odd until my ex-boss told me not long ago that I was the only person he’d ever heard use it.
Does anyone else know…. is it an old usage? Or a regional usage? Our family are Isle of Wight born and bred – Caulkheads.
My dad used it. Also bloody though if circs required it.
As did Rick Mayall in The Young Ones
A Partridge preferred euphemism too.
Blummen flip, let’s get it on with it!
Thanks all above. Better make sure I avoid a Rik-like nasally sneer next time I use it.
And roll the R thesp-style.
Many many, years ago, my gran used to ask if I was courting.
Chance would be a fine thing.
My old lady and I were crashing at each other’s pads and doing the wild thing.
Wooing, courting, canoodling and spooning are all activities of the past.
https://hometownbyhandlebar.com/?p=31332
I read that bonking has also been discontinued.
Nowadays, they invite each other home for “Netflix and Chill”. An expression that must be on its way out when a fogey like me knows what it means!
https://www.theguardian.com/media/shortcuts/2015/sep/29/how-netflix-and-chill-became-code-for-casual-sex
See also: “stepping out with”
Music : Beat Combo
Poptastic
Supergroup
Hip
Gear
Groovy
Glamrock
Come off it, I use all those most days. My middle name might be Arch though.
From the same era :
Breadhead
The Man
My heavy friends always, like, say these things.
“Group” is no longer so commonly used. “Band” seems to be the preferred term for two or more musicians working together.
Swell (as an adjective)
Swan (as a verb)
I swan about all the time.
Swell though…got me thinking of the Rodgers and Hart song, Thou Swell (“Hear me holler, I choose a sweet lollapaloosa in thee…”), which is probably the only way the word lives on. Which led me to June Allyson getting some hot twins action – they really really don’t make musicals like this any more.
There’s another, U.S.-only and archaic use of “swan”, as in “Well, I swan!”
Gloat
Fake
(Pointlessly replaced by German and French terms)
Tell that to Donald Trump.
Tell that to the chatteristas over at the Guradian. “Faux” has completely replaced “fake”. Today: “faux feminism”.
Oh, I know what you meant. Just knocking out a modest sally.
What would the guardian know, about feminism, they’re all cissies and nancy-boys.
Disclaimer: my mother probably wouldn’t believe that homosexuals even existed, despite her brother being one (“he never found the right woman”), but these were threats she leavened against me if I ever showed too much interest in anything arty.
I blame that Geordie fellah.
Did you not find a deliciously nuanced irony in the elegant juxtaposition of the sophisticated “faux” and the proletarian “geordie”?
Me neither.
Faux News, indeed.
What do we call the first and last slice of a sliced loaf? I was raised on the edge of That London and still refer to it as the nob.
When I offered Mrs F my nob at breakfast this morning, she politely declined as “the kids are home”.
I’m glad you broached the subject. Is it just me, or is there something slightly … repellent? … about the smooth yet pox-ridden outer surfaces of the first and last slices? Nobody else feel queasy fingering their soft white underbelly texture?
Just me then.
The answer is extra butter or jam (or both) on your nob. It’s like a meal in itself.
I’m partial to a Dorset knob myself.
What you really don’t want however is a crusty knob.
Oh. That’s just triggered a memory of something my paternal grandmother did. She used to butter the end of an uncut loaf of bread, then slice it; the cut face of the loaf facing up.
She was off her trolley, then. As well.
She wasn’t a happy bunny. Rarely has the name Daisy been given to someone so – well – undaisy-like. The look of thunder on her face in my parent’s wedding photos could strip paint at some distance.
May your nob always be lightly grilled, smothered with butter and noshed hungrily.
Is Moose even awake?
How hard* do we have to try?
Moose was at work, you slobs. Lockdown? Wot lockdown?
We sometimes forget Moose’s job as odd job man at St. Hilda’s School For Wayward Girls. It’s only five pounds a week ………..
…but somehow I manage to scrape it together.
Oho!
Moose will be back later, folks, in the mean time try the veal!
The nob? Shirley “nub” or “nub end”?
Both nub and nob derive from the same Old Norse root, knöbb, meaning “end”. The english negatives no and not also stem from the same root, in the sense of an “end” to things.
But back to the end of a loaf. It’s a heel, obviously, you savages.
Baguettes have heels, not loaves.
Baguettes have bitemarks, you dolt!
Oh I say.
It’s called ‘the end’. Glad to clear that up.
This the nob, beautiful friend…. and then Jim got arrested
Chapeau, Maître!
I was told by a baker that they used to be called the pants piece, because after removing the loaves from the oven, bakers would wipe off any excess flour on their hands on their pants.
Not the same thing I suppose. However, no one ever loudly exclaims “Great Scott!” when confronted with an alarming predicament anymore.
cf bugger me with the blunt end of a ragman’s trumpet, once common currency on the floor of the House of Lords, and now little employed.
Superceded by “ye gods!”, methinks.
I have become rather fond of “Jings”, as in the famous Billy Connolly line: “and you don’t really believe the Moderator of the Church of Scotland really says Jings when he drop s that bloody big bible on his foot….”
Fact: my (first) mother in law still says it in a more truly innocent fashion, along with “gee whizz”.
“Havers” is good, too.
Never let it be said that D.C. Thompson and Dudley D. Watkins added nothing to the world of english language.
Crivvens! Help ma Boab! Michty Me!
Being Swedish and living in Sweden; reading books in English both old and new, watching old and new films with English dialogue, it all bleeds together into contemporary English for me. See also American and British English, which I’ll mix happily.
In Swedish I use daily the very old-fashioned expression “Jisses Amalia!” when anything happens that surprises or annoys me, or faced with something unbelievable. “Jisses” is our version of your “Jeebus”, who Amalia is IDK. I also use “Gudars skymning!” (“Twilight of the Gods!”) most days, the two expressions being pretty much interchangeable.
Oik. A word used only by the over 50s and now associated as something Boris would say. If not completely redundant, it’s days are numbered.
Whose days are numbered? Boris or Oik?
Boris can be called many things, but “it” would be a weak choice of epithet.
Fiddlesticks.
I say, steady on old son.
The RAF has provided a veritable feast of slang. Wizard (meaning great) has slipped out of use, as in wizard prang. Do folks still use prang? As in, I pranged the car last night.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_slang
I pranged the missus last night? (Actually, clearly I didn’t, it being a school night.)
Anyone care to join me in lallygagging over the syllabub?
Posset for me please.
Join me on this tuffet.
Snafu.
I like and use snafu, but I do sometimes have to explain it.
It’s too easy to say it by accident, when you have a cold.
My Kenyan brother finds it amusing that I sneeze to the sound of the Somali capital.
F.u.b.b.
Was that Wishbone Ash?
Fruupp, I think.
I believe it was Fucked up beyond belief.
Wotcha everyone!
Fubar
………………..beyond all recognition
It was. The name was appropriated and adapted for a student house of repute in Battersea, PUBAR, as in pissed up. Then, when the landlord evicted them, NUBAR ‘opened’ in Brixton. It was too much effort to think of an actual N word to describe the fun, the crazy play on sounds thought enough. We were young, we were drunk.
N word, could be newted as in pissed as a newt.
Kerfuffle. Gobbledegook. Scrumptious. Winklepicker. A chump.Right On! Far out! Cool beans! Groovy!
Gobbledegook, answer in today’s Guardian crossword.
You weren’t counting on the folk world.
The folk world is way behind us modern hipsters and flipsters when it comes to usage of the lingo. Daddy.
SEGS – used in the West Midlands (or around Coventry, anyway) for Blakeys – metal ‘taps’ hammered or screwed into the toes or heels of shoes to prolong their life.
@Badlands – Segs definitely used in Brum. Never heard of Blakeys.
Blakey’s is a brand name.
https://blakeys-segs.co.uk/