v stake a claim for something in the same way that Americans would claim “dibbs” on or “call” some item or privilege: I bagsie the front seat or Bagsie first shot on the dodgems! It’s a rather childlike sentiment; you would be less likely to hear I bagsie being Financial Director! It doesn’t seem ridiculously far-fetched that it’d be derived from “bags I,” with “bag” meaning to catch something. But hey, who can tell. [Etymologists. –ed.]
The Letter B
n Scottish baby. Possibly derived from the old Norse word “barn,” which means both “child” and “children.”
n potato. Baked. You can buy a baked potato on either side of the pond, of course, but in the U.K. you will specify the filling as you buy the baked potato, while in the U.S. you’ll be brought a small selection of fillings to plonk in yourself. British fillings tend to constitute more of a whole meal than American ones.
adj darned. A very old-fashioned minor swear word, muck akin to a lighter version of “bloody”: I say, Edward! I think that ruffian is making off with your bally wallet!
n very cold: I’m not going outside without a coat, it’s bloody Baltic! Presumably named for the Baltic states, which aren’t all that cold.
n clumsy idiot. As with a lot of the Brits’ less-than-complimentary words, it isn’t really offensive — it’s used more in goading fun than anything else. Has a derivation similar to that of “barmy.”
n sausages. Probably most often heard in the name of the dish “bangers and mash” (the “mash” being mashed potato, but I hope to God you worked that out yourself). So called because they make popping noises when you cook them.
n any public holiday for which the public have forgotten the original purpose. You know, that holiday on the fourth Monday in June. It was something to do with Saint Swithen, I think. He was born maybe. Or was he beheaded?
n A charming dessert pie made of bananas, cream, toffee, condensed milk, sugar, butter, methamphetamine and Soylent Green.
n clumsy idiot. As with a lot of the Brits’ less-than-complimentary words, it isn’t really offensive — it’s used more in goading fun than anything else. Has a derivation similar to that of “barmy.”
adj idiotic. You might describe your father’s plan to pioneer the first civilian moon landing using nothing but stuff he’d collected from a junkyard as “barmy.” Well, unless the junkyard he had in mind was out the back of Cape Kennedy and he had funding from China. It may or may not derive from the fact that there was once a psychiatric hospital in a place called Barming, near Maidstone in Kent, England. It may equally easily come from an Old English word for yeast, “barm,” intended to imply that the brain is fermenting. As these competing etymologies seem equally plausible, it seems only sensible to settle the matter in an old-fashioned fistfight.
n hair; hairstyle. Another example of Cockney rhyming slang which has slipped into the common vernacular: “Barnet Fair” / “hair.” Barnet is an area of London. Presumably they had a fair there at some point.
n argument; fight. This is certainly rhyming slang, but no one’s sure of whence it came. It could either be “Barney Rubble” / “trouble” (Barney Rubble is a character in the cartoon “The Flintstones”), or “Barn Owl” / “row” (when it means “fight,” “row” rhymes with “now”). The latter is marginally more likely, as “trouble” could be many things other than a fight, but the former is a more popular explanation. Pick one.
n sort of lawyer. Barristers are different from solicitors in such a convoluted way it took a barrister a whole page of ball-bouncingly dull prose to explain it to me.
interj press on regardless, to keep struggling in the face of adversity. Has nothing to do with hitting people.
v working enthusiastically. These days you’d have difficulty saying it without a chorus of sniggers from the assembled crowd, as everyone in the U.K. is well aware of the American use of the word “beaver.” It’s the sort of thing your grandmother might say at Christmas dinner that would make the younger generations choke on their soup.
n single rented room in a shared house, usually with a shared bathroom. An antiquated term, it was popularised after World War II, when housing was made scarce by the Germans. Nowadays, a bedsit would be referred to as “spacious Penthouse suite in desirable residence” or “gorgeous, bijou living space in up-and-coming neighbourhood”.
n coaster. In the sense of a coaster you put your drink onto, not a roller-coaster.
n yellow flashing lights on sticks that are positioned next to zebra crossings and flash constantly to alert drivers. They were named after Hore Belisha, who was Minister of Transport when they were introduced. Perhaps a more interesting derivation was put forward by an episode of the BBC radio programme “Radio Active,” which featured an unwinnable quiz, one of the questions being “From where did the Belisha Beacon get its name?” Answer: “From the word ‘beacon’.” I was younger then, and in the cold light of day it seems less funny now than it once did. You can’t take away my childhood.