Home » London » Brit Slang

I’ve been bad about updating lately – incredibly busy getting settled in the new flat. I had Monday and Tuesday off from work (I started today) so I did the incredibly touristy bits of London including Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, The Museum of London, The National Gallery and I stood under the London Eye but decided I didn’t want to pay 40 quid to be stuck in a tram with a screaming baby for an hour. I’ll go back later for that one :).

Today was my first day of work. It was actually a half day as things have been so busy with a site relaunch, everyone slept in this morning.

Really, I don’t have too much to say in terms of an update, I’ll have to do a full proper update at the end of the week. To tide you over, I promised a friend that I would do a glossary of some of the better British slang. Here are some of my favorites, or the ones I use quite a bit.

A bit of a lie-in = sleeping in
Absolute pants = complete trash
Fit = hot/sexy
Loo = bathroom
Tube = the subway
Ace = brilliant/fantastic
Naff = uncool
Football = soccer
Rounders = baseball (or something vaguely like, but really only played by females)
Pitch = field
Queue = line (as in, “stand in the queue or your won’t get your ticket!)
Smart = well dressed, put together, looking sharp
Taking the piss = making fun of someone or something (as in “she was taking the piss out of me for being an American but I knew it was all in good fun because that’s how British humor works”)
Spanner = monkey wrench
Uni = college/university
School = elementary school or middle school
Zed = zee (the last letter of the alphabet)

Also, for your further edification, these things have fairly negative connotations in Britain:
community
community service (implied you’ve been in prison!)

I hope you are all now prepared to come visit me here!