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10 British Insults Americans Won't Understand

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  • #16
    Originally posted by GUT View Post
    I was told once that TWIT was an acronym for That's What I Thought
    I just checked in the full Oxford English Dictionary, and it doesn't offer any origin for the word at all.

    While I was there, I looked up "twat" as well. It, too, is of unknown or uncertain etymology, but I had heard at school that "twat" was another word for a nun's head-gear. This is actually mentioned in the OED, but only to say that it's incorrect; the entry in the OED shows that the original quote (from 1660) was clearly using the "rude" definition, but Browning (whoever he was) evidently took it to mean "nun's head-gear" due to the mention, in the same verse, of a cardinal's hat:
    Erroneously used by Browning in 1727... under the impression that it denoted some part of a nun's attire. Vanity of Vanities, 1660: "They talk't of his having a Cardinall's Hat / But they'd send him as soon an Old Nun's Twat"
    Kind regards, Sam Flynn

    "Suche Nullen" (Nietzsche, Götzendämmerung, 1888)

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    • #17
      I'm so sure about "twat" meaning a nun's headgear (also called a wimple), because "an old nun's twat" fits well with nun meaning prostitute.
      See also Shakespeare's "get thee to a nunnery" in which he may be referring to a brothel, not a convent.
      Pat D. https://forum.casebook.org/core/imag...rt/reading.gif
      ---------------
      Von Konigswald: Jack the Ripper plays shuffleboard. -- Happy Birthday, Wanda June by Kurt Vonnegut, c.1970.
      ---------------

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      • #18
        Originally posted by Pcdunn View Post
        I'm so sure about "twat" meaning a nun's headgear (also called a wimple), because "an old nun's twat" fits well with nun meaning prostitute.
        Indeed, it doesn't mean a nun's headgear, but that was the urban myth - started by Browning in 1727, I guess - which was still circulating when I were a lad.
        Kind regards, Sam Flynn

        "Suche Nullen" (Nietzsche, Götzendämmerung, 1888)

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        • #19
          Someone once called me a vile wanker on here. LOL! Greatest insult ever. And it rolls off the tongue like honey. Vile wanker. Love it!
          "Is all that we see or seem
          but a dream within a dream?"

          -Edgar Allan Poe


          "...the man and the peaked cap he is said to have worn
          quite tallies with the descriptions I got of him."

          -Frederick G. Abberline

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          • #20
            Bellend...

            Used almost every day at my work to describe someone

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            • #21
              "Knob" was left out. A grievous omission, I feel.
              “Sans arme, sans violence et sans haine”

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              • #22
                Another one that American's never seem to understand is "whinger"
                “Sans arme, sans violence et sans haine”

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                • #23
                  Plonker, prawn, ponce, ratbag, faggot, scrubber, wazzock, turd, git, toerag, airhead, p*sshead, nerk, p*sspoor (adjective).

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                  • #24
                    I'm sure Americans know the word faggot, Robert...although if you asked them if they'd ever eaten one you may get some funny looks.

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                    • #25
                      Originally posted by Abby Normal View Post
                      Someone once called me a vile wanker on here. LOL! Greatest insult ever. And it rolls off the tongue like honey. Vile wanker. Love it!
                      Phil Collins used the word in an episode of Miami Vice, at a time when network US tv was highly regulated-I believe it still is. I remember when he was interviewed about it he said he suggested the dialogue to the director; he agreed, without taking the trouble to ask what it meant! https://amp.theguardian.com/tv-and-r...actors-jamelia

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                      • #26
                        Originally posted by Magpie View Post
                        Another one that American's never seem to understand is "whinger"
                        That's just a "whiner", isn't it-- someone who complains incessantly?
                        Pat D. https://forum.casebook.org/core/imag...rt/reading.gif
                        ---------------
                        Von Konigswald: Jack the Ripper plays shuffleboard. -- Happy Birthday, Wanda June by Kurt Vonnegut, c.1970.
                        ---------------

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                        • #27
                          Wool / Wally

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                          • #28
                            Originally posted by Pcdunn View Post
                            That's just a "whiner", isn't it-- someone who complains incessantly?
                            Yep, here in Ausknown as a whinging POM.
                            G U T

                            There are two ways to be fooled, one is to believe what isn't true, the other is to refuse to believe that which is true.

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                            • #29
                              Some favourite Welsh ones: twpsyn, lembo, twmffat, mwlsyn

                              And, in English: twonk, pranny, prat
                              Kind regards, Sam Flynn

                              "Suche Nullen" (Nietzsche, Götzendämmerung, 1888)

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                              • #30
                                Gareth, is twpsyn related to twp? Hale and Pace used to do sketches where a man kept asking, "Ooh, what's that, then? " "Ooh, how does that work, then?" etc and I believe this man was known as the twp man.

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