v urinate: Give me a minute, Dave – I’ve got to go and see a man about a dog.

n Scotch tape. Sellotape (a contraction of “cellophane tape”) is the name of the largest manufacturer of sticky tape in the U.K.

n American: Hey, did you hear Bob had moved to New York and married a septic? From Cockney rhyming slang “septic tank” / “yank,” where “yank” is in turn used in the U.K. to mean “American.” If you don’t believe me, look it up, but I have to warn you that I also wrote that definition. The Australians use the same term and have further abbreviated septic to “seppo.”

n napkin. The thing you put in your lap to block the path of food falling onto your clothes.

1 v lay (sexual). Usually refers to the act of intercourse itself, except when used by a bloke giving his mates the details about what happened with that tidy bird he pulled in the club the night before. In this case, the term shag should be interpreted to mean anything between a peck on the cheek and a punch in the face. Brits find very amusing the use of the word “shag” in the U.S. to refer to certain dances. 2 adj shagged tired. In much the same way as most other humping words can be used: Spent the whole day hiking and now I’m completely shagged.

adj in complete disarray, unorganised; in shambles. You might use it to refer to your aunt Gertrude’s octogenarian hairdo or the Russian army’s method of ending hostage situations. If I was ever to give one piece of advice to someone wanting independence for their part of the U.S.S.R. or keen to highlight a particular cause to the Russian government, I’d suggest not taking hostages. If you do so, the Russians give you a couple of days of negotiations, throw in a bit of food so you feel you’ve got your money’s worth and then on about day three they massacre you and all of your hostages using some devastating new method they’re trying for the first time.

n an alcoholic mix of lager and (British) lemonade. Usually 90% lager and 10% lemonade, and generally drunk by people convinced that they can get as drunk as a skunk on shandy and still be fine to drive the car. Shandy has also given us such retail gems as Top Deck, a canned drink which contains not only the cheapest lemonade money can buy, but rounds it off nicely with a dash of the grottiest beer available west of the Himalaya.

v, hunt members of the opposite sex, with copulation in mind. The easiest way to spot someone who is sharking is to watch their friends, who will every so often hold one hand just above their head like a fin just to make the point. The difference between sharking and being “on the pull” is that sharking is slightly more proactive. If you’re on the pull you won’t say no; if you’re sharking you won’t take no for an answer. I was once told that “shark” in U.S. slang is, erm, a sexual technique. I then tried and failed to describe the act itself in polite terms, and have subsequently given up.

n the past-participle of “shit” – this also exists in the U.S. but is in much more common usage in the U.K.: That pigeon just shat on my car!

adj extremely tired; emotionally devastated. You could be shattered by the death of your dear mother or a good invigorating jog. Experiencing both simultaneously would leave you shattered in two different ways at once, and probably reasonably angry. Can there really be a God if the world contains this much suffering? No, probably not.

n pre-decimalisation U.K. unit of currency – worth a twentieth of a pound, which was then twelve pence.

n, v deft evasive manoeuvre: The bull went straight for him but Mike shimmied out of the way.

n homosexual man. A slightly archaic term. It may come from a time when shirts had longer tails and, well, posterial access required some lifting. Don’t pretend to me you don’t know what I’m talking about.

adj testy; irritable. May have originated in a time when people used to take off their shirts to fight and so “getting shirty” meant that you were preparing to thrash a rotten scoundrel to within an inch of his pitiful life.

n shit. The only plausible reason I can think of for this word’s existence at all is that it has more rhyming potential for football songs. Perhaps soon we’ll have the word “shitove,” giving Whitney Houston and her cohorts further opportunities to over-use the word “love” in their drivelly good-for-nothing pop songs.

adj poorly made; shoddy: I showed mum the Eiffel Tower model I made from matchsticks, and she just said it looked a bit shonky.

n store. What Americans call “shops,” the Brits call “workshops” or “garages.”

n treat; gift: Want to go to the cinema this afternoon? My shout?

n vomit. Brits call the act of vomiting being sick, and vomit itself sick: Gah! There’s sick all down the back of my shirt! Like Americans they do use the noun to also mean “unwell,” so saying “I am sick” does not translate to “I am vomit.”

n a day off work elicited by feigning illness: I’m going to take a sickie tomorrow and go to the zoo!