I doubt if every bog-standard BE speaker is familiar with ALL of them. I hadn't heard of 'cream-crackered' for example, but I have heard of 'cobbler's', which is also rhyming slang, rather more common and not on the list.

Incidentally, the phrase 'spend a penny', while often related to the first public conveniences at the 1851 Great Exhibition (which cost a penny to use), is far older. I have a collection of letters from an eighteenth-century Irish bishop to his teenage daughter in which he uses the phrase to mean just this.

I note that the list gives one of the two meanings of 'chuffed'. The other is the opposite.

;-)

Edith just 'ad a shufti or butcher's - "88 very British phrases that will confuse anybody who didn't grow up in the UK" is clearly not correct. Neither did I grow up in the UK nor did I spend any significant length of time there, but quite a few are very familiar to me ;-)

A 'tinkle on the blower' is old enough for me to know it. But today's young?

Delete and substitute 'porkies' = 'lies' (pork pies). Though in Jamaica I'm told it means 'white women'.

it's an odd mix of old and new - "dench"??? "long" (= tedious) ??

But I like the way that past-tensing any random noun can be made to mean "drunk" - (I was completely cheesegratered last night!  - Tell me about it, I've not been so combine-harvestered in years!)

edit: #8 was not there when I posted my missive...

Ist "nick" wirklich auch (und nur) "Gefängnis"? Ich kenne das eher als Bezeichnung für die Polizeistation.

Weiterführung der Liste:

- "Chelsea tractor" - teure SUVs

- "'blige!" (wie in "much obliged") soll angeblich erfreutes Erstaunen über ein unerwartetes Kompliment ausdrücken und aus Nord-London kommen.

- "tea" für "dinner"

#9

Of course you might end up getting interference from the British ability to turn practically any word into innuendo. If you say: "I've not been so combine-harvestered in years!", the other person might wiggle their eyebrows and go, "... as the actress said to the bishop."

Wird "discussing Ugandan affairs" noch verwendet?

re # 7 porkies (Cockney rhyming slang) - also meaning white women in Jamaica.

This is perfectly feasible as porker is generally a derogatory term for overweight/obese people.

We've not come across this in Jamaica. A less derogatory and more common word would be "whitie".

Also I'm not convinced's it's exclusively for women.

... or "My hovercraft is full of eels"? :-)

'Spanish practices'

Certainly used in the 90s to refer to arcane procedures in the workplace, tacitly recognized and agreed to by management and workforce alike, but incomprehensible to outsiders.

to be 'on the wagon' (scil. water wagon) = to abstain from alcohol

'away fixture' = Seitensprung

'see a man about a dog' = use the toilet (of men only, I think)

Does anyone still use the term 'how's yer father' for hanky-panky? Come to that, does anyone still say hanky-panky (= Ugandan discussions)?

oh yes!  (usually only "a bit of how's yer father", though.) But we also say "consider my flabber well and truly gasted" when shocked, so we probably don't count as proof of everyday, modern usage.

Adding "-ed" to nouns, surely. This always works. It needs a grammatical rule named after it or something.

I don't think there's been a pea-souper in the UK since the 1960s, but it's still in the national conscience.

"A bit of how's yer father" - I can't think of any situation in which I could get away with using this.

I love "wind your neck in" and "shirty" for sheer power of expression.

Suggested addition: "Keep your beak out" (used in response to nosiness).

"don't get your knickers in a twist"

"plimsolls" und "pumps" für Sportschuhe

wellies = Wellington boots = Gumminstiefel

@22

Thanks for that, hm--us, it surprises me a little (at least the last two).

@21

What it is to live in England. You've heard more of these than I have.

I note that the original list explains 'leg it' by giving 'scarper' as a synonym, which I suspect is not AE. I have heard that it is also rhyming slang, from Scapa Flow = go, but that may be a load of cobbler's.

They're gumboots to us.

The story of its coinage may be found here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/12...

No word on whether or not Judi was the inspiration behind it, although she is aware of the phenomenon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAj0OPbcFLc&f...

And they have also collaborated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7ojygIbMYk