American Reacts to British Phrases that Confuse Everyone
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- Опубліковано 19 гру 2022
- Americans really enjoy hearing British words and expressions, although admittedly there are many times we do not have any clue what is being said. That is why I am very excited today to react and learn about these top 10 British phrases that confuse the rest of the world. If you enjoyed the video feel free to leave a comment, like, or subscribe for more!
![American reacts to How Stupid are Americans? [part 1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/-PA34wSTf44/mqdefault.jpg)
Everyone in Britain is brought up with these phrases or sayings we learn them from our parents or grandparents
Or failing that, Del Boy.
Graham 😅🤣 👍
Pretty much the same for Australians of scott/irish/English ancestory
A car 'trunk'sale!
@@maureenalder8905
Oh yes... I hate it mispronounced as "Gram" free !!
As a Canadian, having an English mum, I was familiar with a few of these. Especially “ Spend a penny “. If we were out shopping she would ask us “ Do you need to spend a penny, before we leave “. It made sense back then, because most public toilets had coin slots and would only unlock when you put your coin in.
My mum still did this at the hospital. Trouble was, it was in the middle of a very large hospital atrium and she was then in her 80s. As my sister pointed out, “I’m fifty, mum. You don’t have to keep asking me if I need to spend a penny!”
I remember actually having to “spend a penny” in union station in Toronto as they had pay toilets
It originates from the Great Exhibition of 1851, which supplied the first ever public toilets, which you had to pay a penny to use.
20p now. If you're lucky.
The last one, the full phrase used to be “what you lose on the swings, you gain on the roundabouts”. Both of which were playground equipment and so you got equal fun which ever you chose.
It's actually from old fashioned fairground rides as someone could get a short ride on one of them but gain on another.
Aussie here. A lot of these terms are common here too from our British background and also a lot of British TV. Car boot. Difference between UK and US terminology referring to cars. Boot= trunk and hood=bonnet. Those terms are used in Australia too. Car boot sale is like a garage sale but a whole bunch of people in a common location like a field all selling cheap. 2nd hand stuff from their car boot but set out on blankets tables etc Common in Australia too. Butchers hook is Cockney rhyming slang but each word doesnt relate to the other it just rhymes. Rubbity dub=pub butchers hook=look frog n toad=road trouble n strife=wife and many many more. Spend a penny you used to have to pay a penny to use a public toilet. On the pull goes that bit further than dating 😄 Dont overthink Tyler its not that complicated. Swings n roundabouts (like ups n downs)you win some you lose some it all evens out in the end.
Gotta love a good car boot sale. Lol takes me back to my childhood days being dragged thru a muddy field clutching a ten pound note like it was gold, looking for 'treasure' 🤣
@@VickyF_ How times have changed. I'm in my 50's and used to get 50p for my treasure hunting lol
Canadian here and I have the same reaction. Interesting to note the phrases where Tyler is completely lost, but I find the phrase in common use, sometimes with a very slight change in meaning. Compare with phrases where both of us are completely lost (butcher's for e.g.). In Canada there are a lot of cases where both the American and British slang are used.
Another phrase is "In aroundabout way"
Exactly
Though I will add that TRUNK is the correct term.
This comes from when a Wooden trunk was attached to a car to
provide storage space.
The English being arrogant - envious and jealous by nature had to
change the word - mostly out of spite and jealousy.
Thus for example they called an elevator a LIFT - when elevator is correct.
One must keep in mind that the INVENTOR has the naming rights -
and no 'one' has the right to change it.
North Americans have their own brand of arrogance - for instance - they
cannot say SOLDER correctly - it is two syllables SOLD ER
yet they say SOD ER -- They cannot understand or read the word SOLD
Neither do North Americans understand Phonetics and almost all
languages (except English) are phonetic.
English is a corrupt language with an abstract alphabet that has no
relationship to the spoken word.
Thus 99.7 % of North Americans cannot be taught how to pronounce
foreign names and words correctly.
Australia is a vibrant multicultural nation and also thanks to SBS
has mostly avoided such ignorance --
One fact is that Australia does not have an official language - despite that
English is the most common.
The USA has two official languages - English and Spanish
Canada has two - English and French
New Zealand has two - English and Maori
Morocco has two - Arabic and French
Some countries have three or more official languages
South Africa has thirteen + other non-official languages
The essence of Cockney rhyming slang is that you take a phrase that rhymes with what you want to say, and then usually drop the part that actually rhymes. So for example:
Butchers = butcher's hook = look,
Porkies = pork pies = lies,
China = china plate = mate.
Not all are abbreviated though, so you also have e.g.
Apples and pears = stairs
Dog and bone = phone
Some Cockney rhyming slang is pretty rare these days, but others are so common even outside London that I expect a lot of people don't even realise that's what it is.
Also "Pop goes the weasel"; Weasel and stoat = coat. "Pop" to pawn.
Trouble and strife = wife
"Adam and Eve" = believe, "Loaf" (loaf of bread = head), "Tea leaf" = thief.
They use a similar sort of rhyming slang (but with different words) in Sydney ("Steak and Kidney"), Australia.
Having a shufti is quite common. Although that is a real word. It's Arabic for look. We use a surprisingly large number of foreign words in everyday life here in the UK.
Treacle; Treacle Tart = sweetheart
Cockney slang evolved as a language used by the City's market traders not wanting the 'Peelers' ( after Robert Peel founder of London's first Police Force) to know what was being spoken as may have been describing a not quite legal pursuit. Time to go up the apples to have a butchers at what the rumpus outside's about.
A car boot sale is like a garage or yard sale, except usually involves travelling to a pre-booked site with trestle tables, alongside many other ‘car-booters’ selling their stuff, so it feels like a temporary outdoor market. Typically, the driver reverses up close to the table(s), and unloads things straight from the boot.
“Car boosters”
Puts a new spin on it!
@@TheCornishCockney I think the right response is “Gaah!” I despise stupid so-called auto correct, but hate myself even more when I’ve quickly scanned what I’ve written and missed an obviously stupid ‘rewrite’. Car-boosters are obviously a more dangerous bunch! Probably my worst experience of correction involved writing about daleks, only to have it rehashed as Daleys. I guess if you have the plunger, take the plunge!
@@johnmayhew9769 you can edit your comments if you click the 3 dots 👍
@@helenagreenwood2305 Thank you! How did I never learn that before!?
@@helenagreenwood2305
Thank you for the info re the three dots. I had forgotten how to edit my comments as had spent so very long being unable to see (due to cararacts in both eyes, which I've now at long last had removed !) Now, thanks to you, I should be able to edit my typos plus the changes made to my comments by the Tablet's sometimes annoying habit of for example, changing "Grrrr" to 'free' as it did earlier...but now seems to 'learned' as it did Not change "_that_ grrrr" !! Sigh. 😮😊❤
Aussie, here. I understand them all. I sometimes feel American English tends o be very literal. So obscure references may elude.
This is one of the best videos I’ve seen as they are actually common phrases we use all the time.
“Bob’s your uncle” just means “there you are”, “there it is” or possibly, “voila” and can be used in pretty much any situation
"Bob's your uncle fanny's your aunt " I always thought that was the saying could be wrong.
@@e7340 just means the same thing really … sort of ‘that’s the whole thing finished’
@@e7340 It is - it just usually gets shortened 👍
He still got the meaning wrong
"Have a Butchers" - rhyming slang (Butchers Hook - Look)
I’m 69 and remember most of these growing in vocabulary popularity after the war years. We, as younger school kids, loved using these terms. We thought it made us look cool. 😁
With regards to the “spend a penny” one… my grandad used to work at a shipbuilders here in England and if he needed to use the toilet you were only allowed 7 minutes to “do your business” and anymore time than that that you used were taken from your pay; he continued to use the phrase “okay, I’m off for my seven minutes” to mean exactly that long after his retirement 😂
No. There were no public toilets for women until the 1850s. There were facilities in grand hotels and luxury shops that could be used by wealthy and upper class women, but working class women were held back by "the urinary leash" and seldom traveled far from home. This affected shopping trips, access to public spaces and the "convenience" of obtaining a job, The Ladies Sanitary Committee, that later morphed into the Women's Suffrage movement, campaigned for years to have councils build facilities for women ad their break came withe the 1848 cholera epidemic when women really had to use the toilet. To finance the toilet the lock was released by dropping a penny in the slot. The fee remained the same right up until the decimalisation of the currency in 1971--so "spend a penny" meant use a public toilet or more widely, just go for a pee.
Swing and roundabout refers to the two options in a children's playground and not the roundabout found on the road. The phase meaning two things are as good as eachother comes from the child having fun no matter if the picked the swings or the roundabout.
Most of us use these sayings in England every day especially my generation I'm 61 and my children also use them
"Why don't you come spend a penny" gives a whole new meaning to the phrase! 🤣
We were taught (so blame my English lit teacher if this is wrong) that swings and roundabouts is a contraction of the saying, "what you lose on the swings, you gain on the roundabouts". Supposedly from running an old fun fair.
People had to pay to ride the merry-go-rounds (ie. roundabouts), but if there was a long line they'd wander off and you couldn't make enough to keep going. So you had to provide the swings for free to keep them busy. You made a loss by having the swings to ensure you made enough profit on the roundabouts and ended up breaking even. Hence the phrase was about things being balanced out - where you do not lose or gain.
Which led to the line in a Marillion song being "I'm losing on the swings, I'm losing on the roundabouts", to show him in a bad situation / being unlucky.
@Peter P, Marillion we’re a great band.
@@lizbignell7813 That got me missing Fish's lyricism so have just played Script for a Jester's Tear , so many memories 😊
I'm sure our nan used to say that. 👵 Marillion with Fish on vocals is a huge fave.🤘
Ignore the others, Tyler. Peter's got it right ( although you can also gain on the swings and lose on the roundabouts- take your pick😊)
@Cuppa tea, Marillion causes contention in our house as my husband maintains that they are a Genesis rip off!! I obviously don’t agree.
Born and raised in Canada. I do remember learning cockney rhyming slang when I was a child, from the movie "To Sir With Love". It always stayed with me and was very helpful as I grew to love British comedians and of course, the BBC. I surprised myself today however with just how many of the phrases I knew.
@Cheryl A, I also remember when public toilet stalls were coin operated. lol
My family is from the UK so I grew up hearing lots of slang. I am left handed and got called “skeggy handed”.
They still are. Except it costs 20p now. Instead of a penny.
The term "boot" comes from stagecoach days. Coaches had a "boot locker" . Shortened to "boot"
Ps. If you speak over the explanations you'll miss them.
All these phrases are in common daily use here, plus lots of others. There are many, many euphomisms for just going to the toilet (loo, bathroom, facilities, etc.), like pointing percy at the porcelein, dropping the kids off at the pool, or having a waz.
Most people have a slash several times a day but only drop kids off at the pool once a day. A common expression where I come from was 'splash my boots' .My Canadian wife still says that occasionally!
Point Terence at the tiles also lol
@@garyskinner2422I’ve never heard that one and I’m from England ! And my name is Terence ! Lol
Have a butcher’s is the shortened version of the Cockney (East End London) Rhyming Slang of ‘have a Butcher’s hook’ meaning ‘look’ . Most people shorten the phrase to ‘have a butchers’ because everyone will know what you mean as the phrase is so common throughout England !
I use all these phrases and slang daily, I was brought up in the east end of London so I heard it all the time, even my kids use the slang lol
Cockney Rhyming Slang originated in the East End of London in 18th century, said to have been a way for criminals to converse without the Police understanding. It's a rhyming phrase which is known to the other person if the speaker just uses the first word. Eg - I'm using the 'dog' - Dog & Bone = phone. I've a pain in my 'plates' Plates of Meat = feet. Go up the 'apples' Apples & Pears = stairs. etc
my father had a friend who was an east end Cockney his daughter married an Italian, son in law and father in law used to converse in Cockney rhyming slang in Italian, so this was completely unintelligible to anybody trying to listen in to their conversation.
@@mathewdunstan4142 That's brilliant!
"Bob's your uncle" is just "there you have it" or "there you go". The basic meaning is achieving success without putting too much effort into it.
A "car boot" for immobilising a tyre is known as a "clamp" in the UK. A car boot sale is like a fleamarket where you drive your car into a large field designated for the purposes along with hundreds of other cars and just set up a trestle table to sell whatever you managed to bring along inside your car boot (trunk). You can see a picture of the field at 4:39.
"Spend a penny" was still common when I was a child in the UK back in the 1960s where you really did have to insert a 1d coin (an old penny 1/240th of a pound) into the coin-operated lock on the door of a cubicle in a public convenience. When the UK changed the coinage to digital in 1972, the rate for "spending a penny" suddenly inflated to 5 new pence (which was equivalent to 12 old pence).
"Swings and roundabouts" simply means it's a toss-up between the two options. Another phrase is "six of one and half a dozen of the other", and yet another is "same difference".
You forgot “ Fanny’s your aunt”
Edit:
Decimalisation took place,_not_ in 1972, but on 17th of February 1971 ...just thought you might prefer to know the right date, for future re reference. ❤
These are all really common phrases - car boots are usually held every week at particular locations so there will be lots of sellers and lots of buyers.
Rhyming slang!! Dontcha just love it!! My favourite is, "Septic" meaning... Septic tank = Yank!! = Full of you know what!! Sweet.
We use it with a W replacing Y in Yank. Hey Voila. Bobs your Uncle, Fanny’s your aunt and all that jazz 😅 have a good day 😊
You need to research Cockney Rhyming Slang and its origins. Others have already given examples, but very briefly, it started when London's criminal gangs (mainly from the poorer east end of London) would hold conversations using rhyming slang to prevent anyone overhearing their conversation knowing what was going on. It can get very conveluted as even rhyming slang words get their own rhyming slang words
Absolutely 💯
A few more examples:
China plate = Mate (friend)
Apple's and pears = Stairs
Plates of meat = Feet
Ruby Murry = Curry
Loaf of bread = Head
Aris -> Aristotle = Bottle -> Bottle and Glass = Arse; so Aris is slang for bottom
As in “lost your bottle”
Bottle and glass = arse,you’ve lost your bravery.
Or “kettle”, kettle of scotch (whisky) = watch.
Eg: I got a pukka kettle for christmas
Pukka is just another word for top quality,the genuine article,the real McCoy.
Blimey (blind me),I could rabbit for hours about this!
A car boot sale is usually held in a field and is full of cars in rows with their goods for sale on tables in front of the boot, people pay to enter and shop like it's a market.
Bob's your uncle could be changed to 'and there you go', eg. just follow that road, take the 2nd right turn, then the next left and Bob's your uncle, your there. This can also be followed with 'and Fanny's your aunt'
You should do a whole video just on cockney rhyming slang. That would be an interesting video.
To be fair, much of Britian has been confused by cockney rhyming slang, but we eventually work it out.
I heard that, in fact, the original idea behind cockney rhyming slang was as a code to confuse people not in the know: those not from that community. After all, it works on rhymes not synonyms and the word which rhymes is usually not spoken!
We call it cocky he knees lol 😆
Not if you're a Londoner.
I'd say they're all fairly well used. Certainly I'm familiar with all of them and use them.
Maybe the newness of 'on the pull' in America is directly from Austin Powers. It's been used here in the UK for decades but perhaps the first time it was heard in America was in the film
Or it could be from The Inbetweeners, the UK version seems pretty popular in America lol
Swings and roundabouts, we also say 6 of one and half a dozen of the other, similar meaning that they're both about the same, neither better or worse than the other.
showing a road roundabout was VERY misleading
You do have the amazing ability to pause at precisely the wrong moments :D Like when he said "Butcher's hook, have a look" i.e. to have a butcher's.
A car boot sale ISN’T like a garage sale ! A garage sale happens on your own property with tables set up on your driveway and/or yard; whereas a car boot sale is where you drive your loaded up vehicle to a venue or field that is purposely set up for the sale. You pay around £10-£20 for your pitch (spot) and lay out your saleable items on either the provided table or folding tables you bring yourself. You can also leave bigger, bulkier items for sale from the boot (trunk) of your vehicle.
Also at these car boot sales, you will find people selling new goods or home-made crafted items/baked goods.
When trawling through all the items available for sale, you’ll sometimes find rare antiques and collectibles and that’s why us Brits love to go to them !
A car boot sale is like a city-wide garage sale, or second-hand flea market. Lucky and/or well informed buyers occasionally pick up unrecognised treasures here, but most of the stuff is simply from grown-up kids' bedrooms, gramp's garage after he's died, or unwanted wedding/Christmas gifts from 1988. To understand Cockney rhyming slang (like having a butchers, or going up the apples), you need to look at a great intro to the subject on a UA-cam video by Langfocus.
"im not seeing the connection" - Because you paused the video the very second the explanation was made! 😂
Nobody has thus far pointed out the true origin of spend a penny. (This makes me feel very old, as I can remember asking my mum for a penny for the public toilet) up until around the late 1960s if one wanted to use a public lavatory, you needed an old penny to put in the slot on the lavatory cubical door to open the catch and get in. It had to be a penny, not two halfpennys or four farthings. A penny. No penny, you were in trouble!!😱
An old rhyme from my childhood - "Here I sit, broken-hearted. Paid my penny and only f*rted." The public urinal (i.e. stand-up) was free when I was growing up, but you had to spend a penny to sit down to "do your business".
You only needed the penny if you needed to take a pony.
@@stevenlowe3026 The original rime, is actually, rather ruder than that...”Here I sit quite broken hearted, payed to crap but only farted”!
@@oldharpydisguised709 Tomayto, tomahto . . .
@@tedwarden1608 I wonder how many people worked out the pony meaning.
Enjoyed your incredulity at the idiosyncratic British vocabulary! Now see whether you can work this one out:
There I was taking a ball of chalk down the frog and toad to get me barnet cropped, wiv me trouble and strife on the dog and bone giving me all the rabbit about the barney rubble her plates of meat give her on the apples and pears. And I’ve just rumbled it: she’s a bit Brahms and Liszt - too much tumble down the sink at the ol’ rub-a-dub.
Lmao! Poor guy wouldn't stand a chance decoding that
As a Londoner, born and bred, I know exactly what you said. It's really easy when you've grown up with it. Although some expressions have been modernized.
Sounds like a pisshead to me.
Swerve the trouble and get down the rub a dub.
@ Richard Wells. As a cockney I have to disagree with your rendition of how we would actually say your example. Firstly in most cases we omit the last noun so here is how I would write it.
"There I was taking a ball of chalk down the frog to get me barnet cropped, with me trouble on the dog giving me all the rabbit about the barney rubble her plates give her on the apples. And I've just rumbled it: she's a bit Brahms-too much tumble down at the rub-a-dub dub."
😂😂😂😂😂😂 he doesn’t stand a chance with that
You're right - pulling was originally British. Movies like the Austin Powers films popularised it in the US. With "swings and roundabouts", the usual explanation is that there are two fun alternatives, but you only do one of them, so whichever you pick you're having fun, but still missing out on something. A car boot sale is a sort of community market where anyone can sell their odds and end.
Even though I'm 55 , I still say " It's all gone Pete Tong " when things go wrong , Yes from back in the day when I though I was cool and went to raves etc .... I think I'm probably the only one who says it 🤣
Nope in 30's and we say it too 😁
A weird Welsh one for ya, "say Porth Cawl" is our rhyming slang for "say F. all" 🤣😆
@@VickyF_ I'm Welsh as I suspect GW0WVL is as well but I haven't heard that one. That's going into my vocabulary. 👍😂
@@reggy_h love finding my fellow Welshies 😁
@@VickyF_ There's a lot of us about. And to GW0WVL, 73. I'm sure you understand.😁
My Nanny was a Cockney. I remember, when I was a child, her talking in Rhyme. I know all these phrases. Where I live in the South of England, they are all used at some point in general conversation during the day. For myself, I use "Sod's Law" all the time 🤣🤣🤣
Swings and Roundabouts: A modern, shortened form of a saying my Mom used to use back in the 1950s... "What you gain on the roundabout, you lose on the swings!"
In other words, "you win some - you lose some" or it's a way of saying that what you might gain doing the first half of a task, you'll lose when you complete the second half.
The baggage area at the rear of a stage coach, typically as used by Wells Fargo for instance, was called the Boot. I'm not American and know that.
This might be my favourite video of yours. Your ideas of what some of these meant, had me in stitches 😂
Love to see you talk through your thought processes and get them right!
Your facial expressions when hearing the phrases! 😂
In 1887, British Prime Minister Robert (Bob) Gascoyne-Cecil appointed his nephew Arthur James Balfour as Minister for Ireland. The phrase 'Bob's your uncle' was coined when Arthur referred to the Prime Minister as 'Uncle Bob'. Apparently, it's very simple to become a minister when Bob's your uncle!28 Apr 2008.
Swings and roundabouts is like weighing up what to do, but what ever you chose you will get more or less the same result; like choosing whether to go on a swing or a roundabout - there isn't much difference because you will have fun on both.
'Bob's your uncle' is like the French 'Voila!' ...... there it is, it's done, finished, job complete. How do you get the food blender to work ? ...... well, you plug it in, turn the power on, put some food in the bowl, put the lid on, hit the switch and bob's your uncle'
My dad always used to finish it with "and Fanny's your aunt"
Cockney ryming slang. luv it. I still use it even today. I'm a Londoner born and breed. I'm going down the frog and toad. And in the rubber Dub dub. a Londoner or cockney will figure out this one out. from UK 🇬🇧👍👍
I’m in a right old two and eight !
My knowledge of the swings and roundabouts one is , " What you lose on the swings, you gain on the roundabouts" and I always thought it refers to the old grown up fairground rides, not children's play areas, where people may lose change from their back pockets on one and pick up other people's lost change on the other! So things equal out in the end!
Love this video. Your meaning of car boot sale is so much better
Try these classics me nan uses:
Chip Butties. (buttered bread or bread roll sandwich filled with chips (thick french fries))
Mardy. (sulky, grumpy, in a bad mood)
He's a sandwich short of a picnic. (not clever, not all there)
He's thick as two short planks. or similarly Thick as a brick. (dumb, dense, stupid)
Talking a load of old toot. (talking nonsense or idle chatter, from toot meaning fart)
Up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire. (go up stairs (wooden as in not carpeted) to bed - as Beds is the short form of the county Bedford)
Away on his heels. (run away, a cheeky departure, usually from doing something like stealing or from a fight)
Not the sharpest tool in the shed. (dumb, slow on the uptake)
Pop to the smallest room. (go to the loo/toilet)
Gotta see a man about a dog. (something you say to leave a conversation when you don't want to say where you're going)
Roundabouts were playground items that you sat on and then someone would spin It.
Butchers is Cockney Rhyming Slang, butcher’s hook = look, apples and pears =stairs; only the first part of the phrase is used. It was originally a market traders language that was used to confuse anyone in authority from knowing what was being said.
I know you don't do sitcoms, but Only fools and horses was an amazing tv programme
"Get your coat Love, you're pulled!" Common chat up line in Yorkshire in the 1990s... it rarely worked, but it was funny!
A car boot sale usually takes place in a field that the seller's drive to and pay a small fee for their pitch. The usual practise is for people to take a folding decorating table to display their goods. People may just be there to sell their unwanted items, or they may have purchased things they aim to sell for a profit. The venues are often large, sometimes the boot sale can be run as a fundraiser for a charity. There is no consensus among local authorities as to how car boot sales should be classified, but in some areas councils impose the normal conditions attached to market licences. Some will permit car boot sales only if the proceeds are going to charity as opposed to benefiting commercial enterprises. There's also customs and excise laws to be considered, so the selling of alcohol and tobacco products is prohibited, though in my experience this is often ignored. The sale venue may have their own regulations about what can be sold. Usually only licensed food sellers are allowed to sell food, though there can be flexibility, for example some allow pre packaged food products to be sold, so long as there is no preparation needed.
A few car boot sales can be dodgy and stolen goods are sometimes sold.
A bit like a flea market in US.
Another very common phrase used without much thought of the origin is 'use your loaf'. Loaf of bread, head.
Having a butchers is a classic. It’s so readily used in London
And everywhere else the UK. 👍
Its having a "butcher's" not having a "butcher" lol
@@junebillings9450 I wrote butchers but my phone chose to change it. I’ll put the s back lol
"Pulling" has been around in England for ages. We used it when I was a teenager 30 years ago! "On the pull" is looking to pull.
Loved u're confused expressions when things were explained
We have a lovely time in the summer at car boot sales. On a Saturday or Sunday morning we pack our car boot (trunk) with all the stuff we have been hoarding for years, go at crack of sparrows fart (very early in the morning) to park in a muddy field in rows with other cars.
You need a folding table and a blanket to spread on the ground. Then we arrange all our old tat (stuff) on the table and blanket and wait for the hordes of people to come and hopefully buy your stuff.
OR you take your bags and money, go to the booty, walk up and down the rows and buy totally random stuff which you hoard and eventually pack in your boot and go sell in a muddy field on a Sunday morning.
Usually you don't sell it all and forlornly pack it back in your boot, drive home, count your earnings and decide to blow it on a pizza instead of cooking Sunday roast cos you are too tired from standing in muddy field all morning dis heartedly trying to sell your soul!
Ahhh British TV sitcoms from the 70/80's.... How they impacted our use of words, Cockneys being the source of brilliant patter, God love em.
I would say "geez a Pat Butchers!" If you know.......... You know lol
I'm actually a English guy but I've been living in Louisiana for the last six years now and I love your videos.
I’m a Londoner, many generations of my family before me were Londoners, that grew up amongst costers. Rhyming slang, and backslang were common amongst us. I still use a lot of rhyming slang, but not a lot of people around me do. My children understand me though lol.
I was told that swings in roundabouts is like saying what comes around goes around or like karma
the boot sale is just a garage sale. But instead of going house to house (or mmore fiitting garage to garage). the sellers all go to one place (normally a organised event in a field during the summer months) so you shop around 100 different garage sales at once
Swings and Roundabouts is like when someone tells you that you should have done something one way, and you did it another way and got the same outcome... so when they argue the point you just tell them "well... its swings and roundabouts" as it turned out the same. Two peices of play equipment, but both give you fun.
A car boot sale is basically everyone loading their car with stuff they dont need, parking up in a big field and putting the stuff out on tables as makeshift marketstalls
I was told, that a long time ago, some of the criminal classes in London created a rhyming slang so what they were planning couldn't be understood. As children we took great pleasure in learning some of the phrases - such as 'apples and pears' = stairs, 'butcher's hook' = look. 'Pot and pan' = old man (sometimes means husband/dad), 'Taters in the mould' = cold, 'Barney Rubble' = trouble. 'Trouble and strife' = wife. 'Bees and honey' = money, 'Bottle and Stopper' = copper (policeman - might be where you get the word 'cops' from) and on and on it goes. There are hundreds of them.
Wouldn't copper just come from someone that cops you?
In full:
"What you gain on the swings
You lose on the roundabouts"
Most cockney rhyming slang simply sounds like the word such as;
Butcher hook - look
Apple and pears - stairs
Dog and bone - phone
Trouble and strife - wife
China plate - mate
However, most are now shortened. Lovely Jubbly
When I was young the local butchers shop had sawdust on the floor and joints of meat hanging from the ceiling on hooks and the sawdust absorbed the drops of blood dripping from the meat above. Therefore in Cockney Rhyming Slang a Butchers Hook = Look !
“Plonk” is slang for a female police officer (also, coincidentally, and from the Australian, cheap wine). It originally referred to to what she has between her legs that distinguishes her from a male police officer. Probably this comes from the verb “to plonk” which means to put something down, or, crucially, to put something into, something else without much care or delicacy. A “plonker” is therefore slang for a penis. It is equivalent to calling a man a “dick” or a “cock”.
To “spend a penny” is considered a bit twee these days, and is generally only used by women, or in women's company. A gentleman was never charged simply for having a piss, but only to defecate at a public convenience, because use of a stand-up urinal was not done in a private cubicle there, while females required a sit-down for both operations, so had to spend a penny for access to a cubicle on every visit.
A car boot sale is like an American garage sale, but is far more efficient. All the people who might have a garage sale will congregate at a single place and sell their stuff at the same place and time. This is advertised, and that and the hire of the site is covered by charging the customers and/or sellers a small admission fee. This is worth it from both viewpoints, because sellers get many more potential customers, and buyers have a much greater choice. These sales are extremely popular, and are a good haunt for dealers (both as customers and sellers).
A “chuff” is slang for either a vagina or a rectum. To be “chuffed” is therefore to have another's body part inserted into it. I am told this can be the source of great pleasure, hence to be chuffed is to be in a happy state of mind. Very simple, really.
To go out “on the pull” is to spend time looking for a person to have uncomplicated sex with. While doing this, the goal is to have someone say to you “you've pulled”, and to be taken off by them to a place where the activity can be consummated.
The full phrase is “what you gain on the swings, you lose on the roundabouts”. In the playground, you may try all the apparatus, but while you might enjoy the swings, the roundabouts may either make you dizzy and sick, or you might get thrown off them by centrifugal force. Hence, generally, you might be asked if you enjoyed your holiday, and reply “Swings and roundabouts, really”, meaning some of it was good, some of it wasn't.
All these phrases are in common use.
'Swings and roundabouts' - the full phrase is "what you lose on the swings you gain on the roundabouts", referring to situations that cancel each other out.
Swings and roundabouts each have their own good points. Some choosew swings. others roundabouts and tyhe outcome is very similar. Any choice where actions differ, but the outcome is similar is like choosing between swings and roundabouts - take the one with lesser ill effects. It is the equivalent of a chopice of how to do something being "a six or two threes" - 1x6 is the same as 2x3.
Car boot sales have to some extent replaced the Jumble Sale - a fundraising event at which people pay for a place to sell old clothes and bric-a-brac, although the profits made can be pocketed by the individual sellers, whereas Jumble sales were usually charitable fundraisers. Sometimes people also sell their crafts at more specialist car boot sales, or specialise in the buying and selling of a certain type of goods. It is entirely true that individual WC's in unmanned public toilets are sometimes kept locked and only become available for use by dropping a coin into a slot on the external door handle mechanism and sliding the bolt across. The charge was usually one penny, right up to the 1970s when it rose to 5p, 10p or even 50p coins. They have gradually disappeared since damaging the doors to steal the coins became commonplace during the 1980s, and are sometimes replaced by coin-operated electronic turnstiles. Swings and Roundabouts is another way of saying "It's a broad as it's long," or "six and half a dozen," that is, both ways are more or less the same distance/amount of effort/price/etc.
A very accurate video these are phrases we use all the time
HI TYLER
DEBRA HERE FROM SOUTH WALES UK
HAVING A BUTCHERS HOOK is Cockney rhyming slang it means taking a look at something, we can say "oh go on then I will take a quick butchers at that".
Bob's your Uncle just means 'there you go'.
Imagine a garage sale in a field with loads of other people doing the same thing = car boot sale.
To be honest, we can make words up on the spot and everyone will know what we mean because of the context.
the only way your understand it is by watching the british comedy Fools and Horses your be hooked , its simple really , its rhyming , so butchers crook look , apples and pears stairs , so on and so on , my fav is sky rocket pocket , theres also double slang , Aris is Cockney slang for Arse.
Aris is one of the very best examples of Double Slang. This occurs where a phrase is turned into a rhyme, and later that rhyme is then turned into another rhyme.
In this case the phrase Bottle and Glass became rhyming slang for Artse. Then Bottle because Aristotle, which was finally shortened just to Aris.
It proves the wide acceptance of Cockney slang that these doublings can evolve over time.
Hey Tyler. I really appeciate, your vids. Thank you, sir!
On the Pull can also be said as On the Prowl. The Australian band Ol’ 55 fronted by Frankie J. Holden recorded a song of the same name called “On the Prowl.”
A few commonly used ones in London:
*pony* = pony and trap = *crap* (as an adjective)
*barnet* = Barnet Fair = hair
*boat* = boat race = *face*
*having a bubble* = having a bubble bath = *having a laugh* (being ridiculous OR taking liberties)
Less common:
*syrup* = syrup of figs = *wig*
a pony = £25
a ton = £100
a monkey = £500
And a geezer just means a guy (nothing to with being old)
Syrup also used to refer to a judge, judges wear wigs, as in up before the syrup.
All of those phrases are in common use in the UK.
A car boot sale is a pop-up market which runs on the premise that " one man's trash is another man's treasure".
From wales and seeing ur reaction to our sayings made my day 😂
The main difference between a car boot sale and a garage sale is that in a boot sale, hundreds of people will gather with their cars in a field and sell their stuff as a pose to random people coming to your house
Some parts of America do get more rain, in New York apparently they get double what London get
There is also anther one that means look have a gander were a bit odd with our words but also use have a butchers and I'm from Leeds Yorkshire so they do tend to spread....
Butcher’s Hook is rhyming slang and has a couple of meanings. Often it is shortened to Butcher’s dropping the hook. If someone was to say to Butcher’s to you they could be meaning one of the following. ‘Crook’ meaning unwell or sick. Butcher’s can also mean ‘Crook’ as in go crook which is expressing anger. Butcher’s can also mean ‘Look’ “Have a Butcher’s at that.’ In Australia you may hear ‘Take a Captain Cook’ which is often shortened to ‘Take a Captain’s’ which also means ‘Take a look.’
In my experience "Have a slash" is more common than "Spend a penny"
I think the usage of "Swings and roundabouts" is more roughly equivalent to the phrase "Six of one, half a dozen of the other"
As in, one option is as good as the other.
We could use the swings, but the roundabout is just as good.
I believe the term "plonker" is now only heard in the TV show "Only fools & horses" and was used a lot whilst that show was on the air, but I haven't really heard it much now and doubt it's in common use today.
Yes, a car boot sale is like a garage or yard sale. It rains a lot in the UK and unlike many parts of the USA where people have large yards or a garage, in the UK many properties don't have a garage or a "yard" whatsoever, so selling from the rear of your car at an organized even is about all we have.
A 'car boot sale' is usually carried out in a large field where one can hire a space drive in and set up a folding table to display all the secong hand crap ypu want to get rid of. Most of these are really quite common. The roundabout in the saying is not the feature on the road but refers to a piece of play equipment that goes aroung on a central hub that provides a ride, it's a bit like a cvery small and simple carousel. The swings and roundabouts both give pleasureful play so the saying 'Swings and Roundabouts' refers to a choice of equal things o whichewver you choose it's the differnece between swings and roundabouts, i.e.eah of the choices are just as good but different.
The swings and roundabouts thing is basically saying, "It doesn't matter either way."
"Do you want to play on the swing or the roundabout?" It doesn't matter because they're both fun.
If you offer someone a banana, for example, but then realise you only have apples. If they like apples equally to bananas, they could reply with "Swings and roundabouts," indicating that it doesn't matter that you don't have bananas because they will enjoy the apple just the same.
Bob's your uncle is a shortened version of the full version, which is bobs your uncle Fanny's your aunt.
My wife and I are loving this video from London
A car boot sale - “Selling something that you’ve stolen?” 😂 pretty close to the truth in some cases…
So in the uk. We generally don't have garage sales/yard sales to sell off old unwanted stuff. We will all put our stuff in our cars drive to a giant field where everyone can sets up and sells in one place. Saves people driving around all over town trying to find a sales. You turn up and its all in one place.
Swings and roundabouts means some you win some you lose.
While chuffed is very common, the opposite - dischuffed - is pretty much only heard in the military. "Tread carefully, the RSM is pretty dischuffed."