Colloquialisms From Across the Water

The only real experience I can claim to knowing UK dialects is from years of watching Monty Python.

I suspect my knowledge isn't quite comprehensive, though ...
Priceless...
[h=1]The Dead Parrot Sketch[/h][h=2]Monty Python[/h][h=4]The Pet Shoppe[/h]A customer enters a pet shop.
Customer: 'Ello, I wish to register a complaint.
(The owner does not respond.)
C: 'Ello, Miss?
Owner: What do you mean "miss"?
C: I'm sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint!
O: We're closin' for lunch.
C: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this parrot what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.
O: Oh yes, the, uh, the Norwegian Blue...What's,uh...What's wrong with it?
C: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead, that's what's wrong with it!
O: No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.
C: Look, matey, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
O: No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!
C: The plumage don't enter into it. It's stone dead.
O: Nononono, no, no! 'E's resting!
C: All right then, if he's restin', I'll wake him up!
(shouting at the cage)
'Ello, Mister Polly Parrot! I've got a lovely fresh cuttle fish for you if you show...(owner hits the cage)
O: There, he moved!
C: No, he didn't, that was you hitting the cage!
O: I never!!
C: Yes, you did!
O: I never, never did anything...
C: (yelling and hitting the cage repeatedly) 'ELLO POLLY!!!!!
Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o'clock alarm call!
(Takes parrot out of the cage and thumps its head on the counter. Throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.)
C: Now that's what I call a dead parrot.
O: No, no.....No, 'e's stunned!
C: STUNNED?!?
O: Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! Norwegian Blues stun easily, major.
C: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not 'alf an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it bein' tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk.
O: Well, he's...he's, ah...probably pining for the fjords.
C: PININ' for the FJORDS?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that?, look, why did he fall flat on his back the moment I got 'im home?
O: The Norwegian Blue prefers kippin' on it's back! Remarkable bird, id'nit, squire? Lovely plumage!
C: Look, I took the liberty of examining that parrot when I got it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been sitting on its perch in the first place was that it had been NAILED there.
(pause)
O: Well, o'course it was nailed there! If I hadn't nailed that bird down, it would have nuzzled up to those bars, bent 'em apart with its beak, and VOOM! Feeweeweewee!
C: "VOOM"?!? Mate, this bird wouldn't "voom" if you put four million volts through it! 'E's bleedin' demised!
O: No no! 'E's pining!
C: 'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker!
'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies!
'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig!
'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!!
THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!
(pause)
O: Well, I'd better replace it, then.
(he takes a quick peek behind the counter)
O: Sorry squire, I've had a look 'round the back of the shop, and uh, we're right out of parrots.
C: I see. I see, I get the picture.
O: I got a slug.
(pause)
C: (sweet as sugar) Pray, does it talk?
O: Nnnnot really.
C: WELL IT'S HARDLY A BLOODY REPLACEMENT, IS IT?!!???!!?
O: Look, if you go to my brother's pet shop in Bolton, he'll replace the parrot for you.
C: Bolton, eh? Very well.
The customer leaves.
The customer enters the same pet shop. The owner is putting on a false moustache.
C: This is Bolton, is it?
O: (with a fake mustache) No, it's Ipswitch.
C: (looking at the camera) That's inter-city rail for you.
The customer goes to the train station.
He addresses a man standing behind a desk marked "Complaints".
C: I wish to complain, British-Railways Person.
Attendant: I DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS JOB, YOU KNOW!!!
C: I beg your pardon...?
A: I'm a qualified brain surgeon! I only do this job because I like being my own boss!
C: Excuse me, this is irrelevant, isn't it?
A: Yeah, well it's not easy to pad these python files out to 200 lines, you know.
C: Well, I wish to complain. I got on the Bolton train and found myself deposited here in Ipswitch.
A: No, this is Bolton.
C: (to the camera) The pet shop man's brother was lying!!
A: Can't blame British Rail for that.
C: In that case, I shall return to the pet shop!
He does.
C: I understand this IS Bolton.
O: (still with the fake mustache) Yes?
C: You told me it was Ipswitch!
O: ...It was a pun.
C: (pause) A PUN?!?
O: No, no...not a pun...What's that thing that spells the same backwards as forwards?
C: (Long pause) A palindrome...?
O: Yeah, that's it!
C: It's not a palindrome! The palindrome of "Bolton" would be "Notlob"!! It don't work!!
O: Well, what do you want?
C: I'm not prepared to pursue my line of inquiry any longer as I think this is getting too silly!
Sergeant-Major: Quite agree, quite agree, too silly, far too silly...
 

.''come round (around ) for tea/coffee/drink)...is a phrase almost everyone uses here if they're inviting you over to their home...just as a matter of interest, what would an American say if for example they were inviting a neighbour over for tea? :D Hollydolly, It would probably be "come over and have coffee" or "stop in when you can and have coffee with us", something like that. That isn't something I ever do though, I just wave or talk to my neighbor's over the fence once or twice a year. :)
 

Every couple of weeks, the dustman visits us. He is also known as the dustbinman.
He calls to empty our dustbins, or 'trashcans' as you lovely Americans call them.

We don't have trash here.

To trash somebody or something is to decry it, to suggest it is a load of rubbish.

Real trashy trash is something we call crap (well, that's what I call it).
... English ladies wouldn't use that word.

Excuse me, it's time for my early morning dump.

:p
 
Another thing that gets called by different words is the lavatory...

In the UK, it is called the toilet or the loo (from the French word l'eau meaning water). Public loo's are referred to as WC's or water closets, and in the military, they are called the latrines.

Posh ladies never go to the loo - they go to 'powder their noses' in the powder rooms.
Working-class men go to the bog.

What we all do in the loo has generated a whole host of words, but I'm not sure that your delicate ears would wish to hear them...

:eek:
 
I used to work in a building in downtown Orlando that used to have "THE FIRST, F.A." ("The First" being the name of a bank and the F.A. standing for Federal Association to indicate what kind of bank it is) in huge letters on the top.

British tourists used to come downtown just to take pictures of the building. I guess in England a common mild expletive is "my sweet Fanny Adams" or "my sweet F.A." They always thought that was funny that we'd have that on top of a building.
 
Sweet Fanny Adams originated with a young girl who, in about 1860, was savagely murdered and chopped up into little pieces. The police had great difficulty in identifying her, but once known, that's where the expression came from.

Sweet FA does have a different meaning amongst the 'working classes'. It suggests having nothing at all.
 
Hanfonius said:
Another thing that gets called by different words is the lavatory...

In the UK, it is called the toilet or the loo (from the French word l'eau meaning water). Public loo's are referred to as WC's or water closets, and in the military, they are called the latrines.

Posh ladies never go to the loo - they go to 'powder their noses' in the powder rooms.
Working-class men go to the bog.

What we all do in the loo has generated a whole host of words, but I'm not sure that your delicate ears would wish to hear them...

:eek:
Click to expand...

Growing up in our house we didn't have a toilet or a loo. It was known as the dunny and spending time in it was referred to as sitting on the throne.
 
Had great trouble understanding some expressions when we first immigrated to Australia.





First of all "dustbin" still used then, its meaning a total mystery to me.
Then the usage of the word "tea"! e.g. We're having our "tea" at 6:30 p,m. What the heck--eating "tea"? Took me a while to catch on to that one.
Then I was being addressed as "love/dearie" at the bank! Imagine some little 18-year-old calling you "love/dearie"!
And then the new way of using the word "bloody"? Finally sunk in this was a swear word!
Now, 43 years later, I don't even notice any of the above! :nicethread:
 
I call the bathroom the toilet in the UK. I always have to remember not to call it that when I visit the US. It grosses out Americans because they don't realize it refers to the room not the toilet bowl itself.
 
I have a question from the Python British language I watched years ago ...

Often at the beginning of a sentence a character would exclaim (in what I assume was a lampoon of Cockney) - "cor". Not sure of the spelling, but it would go like:

"Cor, that bird is a handful".
"Cor, the bonnet is all jammed up!"

And so on ... any ideas?
 
I always found that no matter where you went in Europe, asking where the "wee-cee" was got you pointed in the right direction. Of course, then you'd have to figure out WHICH wc you wanted.....they seemed to both have old lady attendants (or sometimes both had male attendants).

The first time I was in London, in 1967, I couldn't figure out why I was reminded by the owner of the tiny hotel we stayed in not to forget coins for the geyser. Ahhhh, a coin-operated hot water heater! One cold English bath and I always made sure I had some coins.
 
SifuPhil said:
I have a question from the Python British language I watched years ago ...

Often at the beginning of a sentence a character would exclaim (in what I assume was a lampoon of Cockney) - "cor". Not sure of the spelling, but it would go like:

"Cor, that bird is a handful".
"Cor, the bonnet is all jammed up!"

And so on ... any ideas?
Click to expand...

Cor is another way of saying 'God'. It comes from the British slang expression 'cor blimey' (sometimes gorblimey) meaning God blind me.
 
Ameriscot said:
I call the bathroom the toilet in the UK. I always have to remember not to call it that when I visit the US. It grosses out Americans because they don't realize it refers to the room not the toilet bowl itself.
Click to expand...

IMO a bathroom needs a bath in it. A toilet is an indoor loo. Outside ones are still dunnies.
 

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