WSJ: British slang on its way out?

[TarnishedPenny]

The topic has been raised a number of times, but here's a new look at it from the Wall Street Journal, including some Aussie slang as well.

British Slang Might Not Be the Dog’s Bollocks Much Longer

‘Wazzock’ and ‘plonker’ are being squeezed out by TikTok trends; Scottish bams keep the flame alive

By James Hookway

July 27, 2024 9:00 pm ET

LONDON—Stone the crows, our lingo’s all gone Pete Tong.

British slang isn’t what it used to be. American stars might enjoy grappling with the alternate universe of what people say on the other side of the Atlantic. A recent highlight saw singer Billie Eilish coming up against British swear words and terms like “chip butty” during a promo tour for her new album. “You guys are not real,” she told Capital Breakfast radio.

But many of the phrases the English grew up with are fading away as younger generations plug into TikTok or other platforms where they learn to call each other “Karen” or “basic” like any other rando, instead of sticking with tried and tested indigenous slurs.

Nearly 60% of the Gen Z cohort haven’t heard the insult “lummox,” according to a study by research agency Perspectus Global. Less than half know what a “ninny” is, with only slightly more of them familiar with “prat” or “tosspot.”

What a bunch of plonkers.

There was a time when nearly everybody would sling about terms like “blighter” or “toe-rag,” and sometimes far ruder terms. That was when the British had more of a shared pop culture, often built around television comedies such as “Only Fools and Horses,” about a family of likable London con men. People would talk about them in the schoolyard or at work the next morning. Everyone knew what everyone else was talking about, even if it was a load of twaddle.

As television and internet culture have radically transformed, the younger crowd has been left ignorant as to what “lovely jubbly” or even “smell my cheese” might mean.

“Language changes, evolves and moves on,” said Harriet Scott at Perspectus, which conducts market research for various global brands.

Old insults such as “mooncalf,” a term for fool, or “cozener,” a word for trickster common during Shakespeare’s time, have long since vanished.

Can you tell your wazzocks from your tosspots?

Now it could be happening much faster, with new slang terms either bubbling up before evaporating, or coalescing into something that circulates among niche groups siloed away in different corners of the internet. It’s a similar situation in other, smaller English-speaking populations.

In Australia, old classics like “bogan,” to refer to someone less sophisticated than you, have some legs. But the country that came up with “skulling a tinny in the arvo,” or enjoying a beer in the afternoon, isn’t generating as many new terms as it used to. Often things are reduced to a vanilla “awesome.”

Things are slightly better in Scotland, where people like to use their own slang mostly because it’s Scottish and not English.

Some 80% of young Scots still know “bam” and its popular derivative, “speccy bam,” which mean, respectively, a nutcase and a nutcase who wears glasses. “Roaster” and “weapon”—which are closely related—are also widely used. Some TV critics say the creative swearing that punctuated HBO’s “Succession” was so effective because it was a distinctively Scottish way of speaking, supposedly inherited from the family’s patriarch, Logan Roy.

There is another bright spot in the U.K. In recent years, twee contractions have gained currency, albeit briefly. When the late queen celebrated her platinum jubilee to mark 70 years on the throne, it quickly became known as the “platty jubes.” The recent snap election became “genny lec” and a cool glass of Sauvignon Blanc is now “savvy b.”

Not everyone is keen. “If I am re-elected,” Labour lawmaker Stella Creasy vowed earlier this year, tongue somewhat in cheek, “I promise legislation to ban the terms ‘genny lec’ and ‘snappy gen.’ That’s a pledgywedge.”

The fictitious Roy clan of HBO’s ‘Succession’ exulted in inventive insults, led with linguistic verve by patriarch Logan Roy, played by Brian Cox.

Coco Khan, a podcast host, suggests there is some merit to going twee in that it makes it easier to broach difficult subjects, like how inflation has made the cost of living unbearable for many. In a recent piece in the Guardian newspaper, she pointed to an exchange on the Depop shopping platform in which a seller said, “I can’t go that low sorry babe xx. Especially with the cozzie livs and all that jazz.”

This is progress, Khan wrote. “Where previously WhatsApp groups discussing hen parties or meet-ups were fraught with anxieties around money, now the simple phrase makes it clear: ‘Sorry girls, can’t afford it. Cozzie livs,’ which is promptly heard and understood with no further need to justify how or why, nor open oneself up to judgment,” she said.

While some of these contractions might stand the test of time, like “rizz” for charisma, by nature they tend to be fleeting. Nobody talks about the platty jubes any more.

More importantly, some researchers fear the British might be losing something crucial if terms like “pillock” or “numpty” are forgotten. These traditional terms of abuse tend to be softer than their more contemporary equivalents, allowing a wider range of emphasis and intensity. Linguists say they can help defuse what could be an otherwise tense situation. Many of the words could be terms of affection when used in the right company.

Others, like “wanker,” are the dog’s bollocks and simply too good to lose, as the British discovered when the Scottish soccer team was based at the foot of the 5,840-foot-high Mount Wank for the European Championship in Germany this summer.

The U.K. press gleefully described how visitors could buy a €27.50, or around $30, ticket for the Wankbahn cable car up to the top, where they could savor the views while sipping beer at the Wankhaus. Journalists posed with street signs pointing the way to Wank or bought bumper stickers saying “I heart Wank.”

The German media was less impressed.

“The players are experiencing the full program of alphorns and Schuhplattler dancing,” the Süddeutschen Zeitung newspaper sniffed. “The reporters are making late-pubescent jokes.”

---

​

A Pillock’s Guide to British Slang

Stone the crows – an exclamation of surprise

Chip butty – a french fry sandwich

Lummox – a person of low intelligence

Ninny – a foolish or weak person

Prat – a foolish person who is a little too impressed with themselves

Tosspot – an odious person

Blighter – a geezer, bloke, chap; not to be confused with Blighty, an affectionate reference to the U.K.

Toe-rag – a contemptible person

Twaddle – nonsense

Roaster – a Scottish term to describe someone guaranteed to make an embarrassment of themselves in any situation

Weapon – in Scotland, a foolish person who is a danger to themselves and others

Pillock – a foolish person

Numpty – another term for a foolish person

Wazzock – a stupid or annoying person

https://www.wsj.com/world/uk/britis...puhqg1eb0r3&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

 

[onehitwanda]

> Chip butty – a french fry sandwich

Get to absolute fuck.

 

[StillStunned]

Smee hee.

 

[TheLobster]

Blimey! Get to the lorry, now! We need to help these blokes preserve their bloody language!

 

[Bazzle]

The Americans ruined this slang.

How many British judges have been called a wanker over the years.

 

[alohadave]

Old timey slang like that is fading away everywhere. Boston/NE has it's own particular slang that is distinct from much of the rest of the country, and my wife is probably the last generation that spoke it natively.

Globalization and nationwide media along with lots of transplants have diluted it so that it's more of a remnant of what it was.

On the flip side, it's easier to pick up words from other languages. I've picked up using Scheiße as a mild exclamation.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

> Chip butty – a french fry sandwich

Get to absolute fuck.

Think that’s odd? When I was there, the news was full of irate tirades against the EU’s banning of that classic British dish, bangers and mash. It seems that there wasn’t enough meat in the bangers for them to meet the EU’s definition of ‘sausage’. To save the kingdom from collapse, bangers were, IMMS, relabeled as ‘ethnic food’.

 

[Escierto]

Old timey slang like that is fading away everywhere. Boston/NE has it's own particular slang that is distinct from much of the rest of the country, and my wife is probably the last generation that spoke it natively.

Globalization and nationwide media along with lots of transplants have diluted it so that it's more of a remnant of what it was.

On the flip side, it's easier to pick up words from other languages. I've picked up using Scheiße as a mild exclamation.

Lol, I remember reading a Boston Globe headline, "Hub man killed in crash". Surely that's still understandable?

 

[JGittes]

I'm an American expat living in SE England (between London and Brighton). I had lived for nearly ten years internationally before I came here. After ten years here, I still only understand about three-quarters of what people say.

The French have a reputation for mangling English beyond recognition. But except for absolute Anglophobes, the French are pleasant in their butchering of American English, and I could understand it. When I first arrived here, the British, on the other hand, were incomprehensible.

I realize this isn't exactly the subject of discussion, but I'm in favour (sic) of less British slang.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Bollocks our slang is dying off. Some words were old-fashioned when I was a wee thing (blighter hasn't been used in earnest this side of the War, plonker is indelibly associated with Only Fools & Horses, which is now a period piece).

I don't use so much of it online because it gets tedious explaining, but certainly in the last decade my kids' normal speech was totally incomprehensible to my American family.

Numpty is still going strong, especially from parents and teachers. So is wazzock. Rhyming slang is still evolving to keep up with the times, with people confessing in 2020 they'd caught the Miley's (or the Billy Ray's, for those over 60).

Ted Lasso has probably introduced Brit terms to many Americans, including the cultural importance of the word "wanker".

Given it's still possible to speak in the UK and not be understood by people who grew up 50 miles away - 10 miles in some cases - I really don't think we need to worry. Allow it, just language is bare dench wi' mandem down my ends, innit?

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Also, depending on context, calling someone a pillock can be way harsher fighting talk than calling them a cunt...

 

[MadeleineSinha]

If you really want fun and games ask what people call a bread roll

 

[Jorunn]

Not enough dustmen like Alfred P. Doolittle around any more.

The Internet is making everyone speak and talk the same - just in time for AI voices to take over television and the movies.

 

[NoTalentHack]

*laughs in former colony*

 

[TarnishedPenny]

The Internet is making everyone speak and talk the same - just in time for AI voices to take over television and the movies

And before that, there were two major and conflicting sources - BBC English (at the time universally posh) and Hollywood.

 

[Carnevil9]

These blackguards are going to turn our language all naff before elevenses.

 

[Bamagan]

Slang terms go in and out of style, like beards or hats or anything else. Forty years from now, some prat who hasn't even been born yet will have himself a wank when he rediscovers his cultural bollocks.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

These blackguard are going to turn our language all naff before elevenses.

Ooh, hark at him, isn't he bold! How bona to viddy your dolly auld screeve!

 

[THBGato]

Nah, it's tots gravy, innit? Old lingo karks it, but there's bear fresh ting from the ends to fit it, ya feel me?

Trust.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

As the OP, I must sincerely apologize for unleashing this on the world

Mea culpa, mea cupola, mea maxima culpa.

I will try to behave in future.

 

[Bamagan]

As the OP, I must sincerely apologize for unleashing this on the world

Mea culpa, mea cupola, mea maxima culpa.

I will try to behave in future.

My fault, my dome-shaped building topper, my most grievous fault?

 

[Kumquatqueen]

My fault, my dome-shaped building topper, my most grievous fault?

-ola added to anything is a very American form of wordplay (payola, Crayola, crapola...)

I ended up reading up on it after my mom accused me of not knowing shit from shinola, and then had to spend time explaining what shinola was.

Though apparently tombolas have both a totally different origin and are unknown in American school or town fairs?

 

[Kelliezgirl]

According to several of my coworkers American kids are learning Australian from watching Bluey.

 

[alohadave]

Though apparently tombolas have both a totally different origin and are unknown in American school or town fairs?

We'd call that a raffle or drawing.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

We'd call that a raffle or drawing.

A tombola is a very distinct type of raffle, though. There's dozens of prizes of varying desirability, mostly shit like a can of soup or spaghetti hoops, a few good ones like champagne. Each has a number ending in 5 or 0 stuck to it. All the number tickets are folded and put in the tombola, which is a cylindrical wooden drum on a stand that rotates to mix the tickets, then you open a wee hatch in the tombola and draw say 5 tickets for your £1, check the numbers, and you instantly win a prize.

Chocolate tombolas and wine tombolas make huge amounts of money for school fairs, even more than the bouncy castle. I seem to recall there's a different US word for bouncy castle, but I'm sure you can figure it out.