adj guy (or, rather, a more refined, more upper-class version thereof). Usually used in a slightly critical tone: Just wait until I get my hands on the blighter who steals my newspaper every morning.

n Britain. A very antiquated term itself and seen most often these days in war films: Well chaps, I don’t mind saying I’ll be dashed pleased when we’re out of this pickle and back in Blighty. It is derived from the Urdu word “Bilati” meaning “provincial, removed at some distance” and was one of the many words that slipped into English during Indian colonisation.

interj nice mild expletive, in terms of rudeness on a par with “my goodness.” It was originally part of the phrase “cor blimey,” which was likely a contraction of “God blind me,” which was in turn an abbreviated version of “may God blind me if it is not so.” There has been little evidence of God blinding users of the word, whether what they were saying was true or not. The original phrase “cor blimey” is still used, but rarely.

adj unusually wonderful. A currently popular slang term, largely interchangeable with “brilliant” or “great.” You’d use it to describe the goal that your football team just scored, or your favourite Elton John song. Though if you even had a favourite Elton John song, there’s a good chance you’re unfamiliar with current slang.

adj damned. A lesser equivalent to “bloody.” Slightly old-fashioned, but still in widespread use.

n guy. A bloke is a Joe Public, a random punter — any old fellow off the street. Unlike “guy,” however, it can’t apply to your friends. You can’t walk up to a group of your mates and say “Hi blokes, what’s up?” as they’d all peer at you as if you’d been reading some ill-informed, cheap dictionary. Without question, the most common usage of the word is in the phrase “some bloke in the pub.”

adj 1 damned. An exclamation of surprise, shock or anger, it’s one of the great multi-purpose British swear words. Best known as part of the phrase “Bloody hell!” but can also be used in the middle of sentences for emphasis in a similar way to “fucking”: And then he had the cheek to call me a bloody liar! or even with particular audacity in the middle of words: Who does she think she is, Cinde-bloody-rella? Etymology-wise, it’s possible that “bloody” has in fact nothing to do with blood and actually a contraction of the Christian phrase “by Our Lady.” Or it might also be from “god’s blood”. 2. bloody-minded obstinate; determined: If he wasn’t going to be so bloody-minded about it we’d have come to a deal ages ago.

adj darned. An extremely innocuous expletive — could be seen as a reduced-strength version of “bloody.” Rather antiquated nowadays.

v break wind (rather old-fashioned): My goodness, is that Deardrie cooking breakfast again? / Hmm, no, I think the dog’s blown off. Brits do not use the American meaning (to brush off).

n telephone: just a second, I’m on the blower. Yes, it sounds a bit rude. May stem from the days of party telephone lines, where people would blow into the mouthpiece in order to gently remind whoever was using the line that you wanted to too. Alternately, it may originate with the navy, where intra-ship communications operated using a similar system.

n five-pence piece. Before the U.K.’s currency system was decimalised in 1971 and became simply “pounds and pence,” the Brits had “pounds, shillings and pence.” Like all crappy Imperial measures there wasn’t ten or a hundred of anything in anything and good riddance to the lot of it. In order to work out how to pay for anything you had to be able to divide by sixteen and nine tenths, subtracting room temperature. A “bob” was a shilling, and these days it’s still vaguely recognised as meaning five pence. Only vaguely, though.

interj there you have it; ta-da! It’s a little antiquated these days but by no means out of use. It carries a cheerful connotation, so you would be more likely to hear: And then fold it back again, once over itself like that and Bob’s your uncle — an origami swan! rather than: Just get a hold of the paedophile register and Bob’s your uncle!

n police officer. After Robert Peel, who was instrumental in creating the British police force. It’s a little antiquated these days.

adj useless junk. While quite recent slang, it’s rather charming: Did your grandmother leave you anything good? / Nope, just a complete load of ancient bobbins. One possible etymology: that it’s from the north of England (particularly the Lancashire and Manchester areas), which used to be supported largely by cotton mills. As the industrial revolution drew to a close, the mills closed down and the population found itself with a surfeit of largely worthless milling machinery. During that time the phrase “‘twas worth nout but bobbins” sprung up; years later we’re left only with the last word.

1 v make a bit of a haphazard job of something 2 n something cobbled together. A “bodger” was originally a craftsman who worked on a green-wood lathe, but this information is of almost no help at all because the word “bodger” still rather implies that such a person was “bodging” something.

v shag (somewhat posh equivalent).

n wonk. Someone who is particularly knowledgeable about his/her subject. It doesn’t quite carry the respect implied in “expert” — calling someone a “boffin” suggests that he has body odour and is a virgin. Boffins are invariably male.

n toilet. More likely to be used as in: D’ya hear Fat Bob took a kicking in the bogs in Scruffy Murphy’s? rather than: I say, Mrs. Bryce-Waldergard, I’m awfully sorry to trouble you but I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of your bog?

n no frills. The basic version. So your “bog standard” Volkswagen Golf would be one that doesn’t have electric windows, power steering or opposable thumbs. Well, nowadays a bog-standard Golf probably does have two thirds of those things. There’s no particular reason to believe that the term has anything to do with a toilet (see “bog”).

n pron. “bo-ghee” booger. The charming little things everyone excavates from their nose now and again but likes to pretend they don’t.