adj something either shady: I bought it off some dodgy punter in the pub, sexually suggestive: The old bloke in the office keeps saying dodgy things to me at the coffee machine, or simply not quite as things should be: I got rid of that car; the suspension felt dodgy. What appalling sentence structure. Fuck it.

adj perhaps most kindly characterised as “slow.” Someone described as dozy might be a little sluggish in understanding things.

n idiot; simpleton. Often related to a particular task: We had to fire Brian – he turned out to be a complete duffer.

n idiot. Intended to be somewhat mocking of an Irish person pronouncing the same word, this made its way into the language in its own right after being popularised by the television programme Father Ted.

n a tricky one to define. But, of course, that’s what I’m getting paid the big bucks for. What it doesn’t mean is what The Waltons meant when they said it (“git outta here, John-Boy”). Git is technically an insult but has a twinge of jealousy to it. You’d call someone a git if they’d won the Readers’ Digest Prize Draw, outsmarted you in a battle of wits or been named in Bill Gates’ last will and testament because of a spelling mistake. Like “sod,” it has a friendly tone to it. It may be derived from Arabic, or it may be a contraction of the word “illegitimate.” Or neither.

interj Christ. By this I don’t mean that Britain is under the grip of a strange new religion where Jesus Christ has been replaced by a man called Gordon Bennett, who came to earth in the guise of a used car salesman to save humanity from eternal damnation. No, I mean more that this is a general-purpose expletive, used in a similar context to “Christ!” or “Bollocks!”: Your brother Tommy’s won the lottery! / Gordon Bennett! Its source lies in the mid-19th century with James Gordon Bennett, son of the founder of the New York Herald and Associated Press (who was also called Gordon Bennett, in case you thought this was going to be simple). Born with cash to spare, Gordon Jr. became legendary for high-roller stunts and fits of notoriety including urinating in his in-laws’ fireplace, and burning money in public. His name entered the lexicon as a term of exclamation for anything a bit over the top.

adj slightly lacking in the common sense department; a bit daft. The word (as “gaumless”) also exists in Scots-derived American English with the same meaning but is not in common use.

adj gross; disgusting. Your mother might use it to describe your room, or your girlfriend might use it to describe your whole flat. Or maybe you’re cleaner than I am.

adj gross; disgusting. The word is derived from the French “manqué,” the past participle of “manquer” (to fail).

adj. pron. “ming-er” someone breathtakingly unattractive: She looked okay when we were in the bar, but when I woke up the next morning it turned out she was a complete minger. On fire and put out with a shovel, that sort of thing.

n deeply unattractive woman. Pretty much equivalent to “dog” or “pig.”

n dimwit: You’ve left the handbrake off, you muppet.

adj tacky, ineffectual and generally crap. This could be a part of the reason why the French clothing firm Naf Naf recently pulled out of the U.K. It may derive from the 1960s gay slang language “Polari” in which it was used as an acronym for “Not Available For Fucking.”

n man who is either extremely effeminate, or homosexual. Or both. A rather derogatory term, and often conjoined into the phrase “nancy-boy.”

n a person who takes a little bit too much interest in other people’s goings on. Presumably “nosey” is related to putting one’s nose in others’ business, but heaven knows where the “parker” part came from.

n Scottish idiot, in a friendly sort of a way: You’ve parked in a disabled space, you numpty.

n someone with a screw loose. This applies to both the “insane” or “reckless” definitions, so a gentleman who scaled the Eiger naked and a chap who ate both of his parents could both validly be “nutters,” albeit in slightly different ways.

adj Northern England crazy: Some chap was dancing with cars in the street – I think he was off his onion!

adj crazy: Some chap was dancing with cars in the street – I think he was off his rocker! And there I go again with the copy-paste. God, I love computers.

adj crazy: Some chap was dancing with cars in the street – I think he was off his trolley! Yes, I did just copy-paste the previous entry.