Here are a few slang words and activities I've dragged up from the chlorinated deep end of my Youth in the Sixties and Seventies. You'll know many more and have your own from your country. These are all from growing up in Lancashire, England. There are some that are too unsavoury to print but these are what's left!
Loo, Khazi, Bog, Throne room - toilet
Privvy - outside loo
Rag - newspaper
Cow Bite - a firm grip on the inner thigh, the then hard squeezing was agony! My brothers' favourite.
Snake Bite - two hands gripping the forearm and a counter twist created excruciating pain! The other older Brother's favourite!
Rib Drill - whilst being pinned down on your back, a single knuckle would be drilled into the middle of the breastbone. A killer! Both older brothers' specialty.
Hickey, Love Bite - extreme mouth suction on one side of the neck creating nasty-looking bruised circles. A token of love that was everywhere in my school! Yuk!
Greeny, Grolly - a large blob of verdant phlegm plastered on the ground
Bogey - nostril waste - as in Pickit, Lickit, Rollit, Flickit!
Crusty - hardened nostril waste
AA, Business, Biz, Numbers, Kack, Sh*t, Sh*te, - a poo, poo
Meat and Two Veg, Short and Curlies, Goolies, Gonads - the male testicles, to be protected at all costs during a skirmish with bad 'uns!
Shreddies, Underkecks, Grundies, Y-Fronts - underpants, usually white.
Skidmark - an unsavoury streak in the middle of your usually white shreddies
Tidemark - an unsavoury line on the neck denoting a lack of washing either above or below it.
Kick the Can - a game in which cans or footballs where kicked and collected whilst everyone else ran off never to be seen again.
Right on - righteous, as in Right On Man! That's groovy!
far Out - astonishing, as in That Tank Top is far out Mate!
Mate, Flower , Darlin, Love, Chuck - terms of introduction and endearment [ In Yorkshire: Cocker]
Pencil pusher - office worker
Lazy B*stard - a fellow prone to slacking
Idle Swine - a Lazy B*stard
Tosspot, W*nker, A*sehole, A*separt, Tw*t, See You Next Tuesday - a bad 'un or very nasty person
Cretin, Idiot, R*tard, Spaz, Sh*t for Brains, Twerp, Berk, numpty, Dope - all suggesting a lack of grey matter
Docile, Dopey - not one for fast movements.
Scalliwag - skeleton
Twit - a scatterbrained fellow
Talent, Crackling - the opposite sex, usually at the school disco.
Honey, Honey Pie, Sugar Pie, Tata Pie, Kidney Bean - what my older Sisters called me
Squirt, Little Squirt, Worm, Annoying Little Turd, Sp*nkbubble - what my older Brothers called me
Wiz, Waz, Pee, P*ss, Slash - to urinate, usually at the back of an old building in the Seventies
Spuggy, Bubbly, Chuddy - chewing gum, Anglo Bubbly being the go-to chew for kids my age
Clobber - clothes
Kecks - trousers
Herbert - an annoying person, as in He's a right Herbert
Belm, Thomas - a lie
Prannock, Pillock - a very annoying person
Bovver, Aggro - hostile goings-on
Cake Hole, Mush, Gob - the mouth
Soft, Mighty - a good thing
Split, Skidaddle - as in, to leave the school disco quickly because you've danced with someone else's bird!
Kaboodle, Tackle - stuff
Fettle - to sort something out
Second Shelf - hidden away, as in Up my A*se, Second Shelf
Pushiron - bicycle
Pad, Joint - a place, as in You're Wrecking the Joint.
Fleapit - old cinema
Flicks - cinema of any sort
Flick - a film
Wrinklies, Giffers, Oldies, Geriatrics - old folks, like me now!
TV, telly, box, Tellybox - the television
Wireless - the radio
Nosh, Scran, Tuck, 'Owt Yummy - food of any kind, preferably steak pudding and chips.
Dosh, Spondoolis - cash for things like Led Zep's latest LP
Schrapnel - small change for things like vending machines and bus fare's up town
Dweeb, Dork, Nerd, Geek - all words that came much much later from American TV.
Poser - someone showing off, usually with some very nice 'clobber' and a decent hairstyle
Bird - girlfriend
Get Stuffed, Get Lost, Get Stretched - as in No Way, You're kidding!
Pitch n Toss - chucking coins or cards against a wall to see who could get closest to it
Garden Hopping - sneaking through neighbours' gardens at night
Skool, Skoo - yep, school. the best days of your life and all that.
Deck - record player
Tunes, Sounds - music
Sound - good, as in He's Sound as a Pound that Jimmy Page.
Chavvers - young lad
Kushti - as in its all good
Toerag - a rotten person
Tw*t him - as in give him a good whalloping
A Good Hiding, A good Pasting - being beaten up, being tw*tted.
Clip round the Ear - a swift smack on the lughole usually by Mum or Dad, but basically anyone in the Seventies, as all adults seemed to smack us poor kids!
Lughole - ear
The Strap - corporal punishment in School consisting of a length of rubber brought down fast on the open palm .... at least it wasn't the cane or birch at our school, maybe because it was Catholic!
Redneck - catholic
Proddydog - protestant
Gaffer - boss
Elbow Grease, Hard Graft - all forms of toil and irksome work
Kip - sleep
Forty Winks - a short nap ....
Good idea, I shall have forty winks myself right now!
Which of these and other words do you recall readers?
A Snake Bite to me was a pint of Guinness and cider mixed. Heavy and alcoholic.
ReplyDeleteI see you thought Cocker was a Yorkshire term for a mate. Not in Shipley Woodsy. I never really heard it used there, as a kid.
Not had a Snake Bite bevvy Mish, might have to try one after my Black and Tan! ha ha. Cocker could be this side of West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire then.
DeleteLuckily for the blogs existance you survived your brother's attentions!
ReplyDeleteha ha, I was good at swinging a stuffed sock Terran!
DeleteWait, "Herbert" was a thing? I'd only heard it on Star Trek (the hippie episode). Perhaps this made the leap to England?
ReplyDeleteYes, Herbert was a thing in School Baron. I remember the hippie episode too!
DeleteThe Ashman = The Refuse Collector.
ReplyDeleteUchafi = Yukk!
I like the Ashman Bill! Is Uchafi Welsh?
DeleteYes Paul, it's Welsh. And it's impossible to spell it properly phonetically! As the "ch" sound is similar to raking your throat! There is no letter V in Welsh so it's substituted by a F. One F = V sound, two F's FF = the ordinary F sound!
DeleteIt's a pretty complex language, with everything either Male or Female. Which annoys the politically correct lot!
Great stuff. We used to live in Gwynedd in the 1980's me and the Missus. She went to welsh classes and told me too it was very complicated, much more than her native German, although that has genders for things too!
DeleteIs Welsh speaking on the rise would you say?
Yes, the statistics people reckon the takeup is on the rise amongst young people. Just where I live there are two all Welsh medium schools. One indants, and the other a comprehensive. There is probably a primary school too, but I can't quite remember where that is.
DeleteExcellent or should I say rhagorol!
DeleteA bit further South, a Snake Bite was called a "Chinese Burn", like "Spaz" and "Mongul" all terribly un-PC terms nowadays.
ReplyDeleteLord knows how we turned out all right, given those sort of playground schoolings!
Yes, I've heard of Chinese Burns Looey! and I'd forgotten that M word, yes, one of the worst we said, often shortened to M*ng at our school. Terrible.
DeleteI think you missed scrumping, as in stealing apples from trees. We took Crab Apples too. And the school I went to was Birch Road College of Knowledge, when we were being generous.
ReplyDeleteof course Khus! scrumping! just as risky as garden hopping! then there's conkers!
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