My love for British words
When I moved to the UK a year and a half ago, I was immediately struck by how many different ways there are of saying the same thing. What I didn’t realize is that they don’t all mean the same thing and the English spoken here is more articulate.
In particular, I’m a fan of the adverbs (both formal and informal!) spoken in the UK. I’m sure I’ll be corrected on these, but below are five different ways of expressing hunger, in order of intensity:
- I’m rather hungry. I’m hungry to some extent.
- I’m quite hungry. I’m hungry to some vague degree.
- I’m well hungry. I’m hungry to an appropriate extent.
- I’m awfully hungry. I’m exceptionally hungry.
- I’m right hungry. I’m hungry to the extreme.
- I’m bloody hungry. I’m hungry to the extreme.
There are a bunch of verbs that I have fallen in love with as well. I knew some of these before moving here, but I didn’t really use them in speech.
- prod - to poke or jab with or as if with something pointed
- nick – steal
- bodge - make a mess of, destroy or ruin
- tread - to step, walk, or trample so as to press, crush, or injure something
- leg it – run!
- waffle – ramble on about nothing
I’m sure there are more, but that’s all I can think of at the moment…
While my wife was working in London this summer past, she picked up many of the aforementioned phrases and vernacular. One evening, while in the pub with her work mates, she returned from the barman carrying two pints of cider & black and announced that she needed help as she was ‘Double Fisting’ her drinks. CRICKETS AND TUMBLEWEEDS. She learned rather quickly that the British term, ‘Double Parked’ is far less offensive than our Canadian term.
Great list! I follow quite a few people from the UK on twitter so I definitely recognize a few of those. I am surprised/confused that “quite” suggests a vague degree, as I use to to express when I am really hungry.
Another fav of mine that I overheard the other day is “sod off” (spelling), used to express some discontent with someone.
blimey!
You forgot “I’m dead hungry” and “I’m proper hungry”
Kind of off topic but when I moved here I head people using the word “Twat” and I thought it was the first time I’d heard it. I was wrong becuase I had heard it before, plenty of times but in North America people pronounce it “Twot”. There’s actually quite a few words that this is the case for but they don’t sound quite as alien… like “Paparazzi / Poperazzi”
/tangent