Do You understand British slang?
 

I am having a real hard time understanding some Brits. It took me 3 days to work out what "take a butchers of that " was. Anyone else have this problem.

Butchers = butcher's hook = look.

There are tons of Youtube videos to help

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRVVCbXmYJo

No.

Butchers = Butchers' Hook = Look.

You just have to "use yer loaf" . Have a goosey at this :

http://londontopia.net/londonism/fun...s-and-phrases/

Shouldn't that be have a gander at? I've never heard have a goosey at, and I grew up with rhyming slang speakers.

We watch a number of British murder mysteries and we use closed captions and still do not understand what they are saying.

Daily.

The struggle is real.

On the plus side, this part of England must not get many Americans because I have had more than a few women swooning over my accent. True story.

The only person around here I cannot understand, ever, is our neighbor from Manchester. And it's not just the slang - it's her everyday speech that is absolutely baffling.

Hetismij - derived from "goosey gander"

Nobody understands anyone from Manchester unless they were born there.

I went last time close to Manchester and the guard at the entrance started talking to me. My colleague, younger than me, and French asked me afterwards, waw, you could really understand him ? I said : no, I got about 15% and just nodded or grunted and it apparently worked. (we did understand the rest of the workers we met in the plant).

I get about 5% of slang. But not a lot of people talk slang to me, the last who did it said he was surprised I didn't understand. and kept going. I have in this case the same attitude : I answer in Flemish (just in case he would understand some french).

Manchester I can deal with. It's the folks from Liverpool that have me baffled.

Bokhara2 I know where it comes from but it is normally shortened to Gander not to Goosey.

St>Cirq you have my sympathies. DH is from Oldham and whe he gets back with his friends from there he reverts to his childhood accent, and as a result is, even after 40 odd years married to him, completely unintelligible.

To me folks from Manchester and Liverpool may as well be speaking in martian.
Im having a difficult time understanding some Londoners and their slang "Bob's your uncle" that one got me pretty good too. I just stared hard at the guy saying it and wondering why he thought Bob was my uncle. I m getting used to things now though/

adielk . . . see my post on the expat thread -- may help explain the 'mystery' of your missing post.

Don't forget to take a dekko at the Indian-origin slang, which can drive you doolally...

Kushti....

Glaswegian.

"Manchester I can deal with. It's the folks from Liverpool that have me baffled". They baffle us Mancs too, not least because they choose to live in Liverpool.

The Manchester accent varies from soft to hard and although I understand all of it, I can well see that the "hard" accent might throw our US friends.

adielk, the end of that quote is "fanny's your aunt and if she had b*lls she'd be your uncle"!

Rubicund: "fanny's your aunt and if she had b*lls she'd be your uncle"!
Haha what the!

What does it actually mean???

I was born in London and understand the old Cockney because my Uncle Terry is from Whitechapel and one of the last (he 82) of the old characters.

I understand some "mockney" and what was known as Polari.

I am shocked that there are people who still use Cockney rhyming slang like "butchers."

My maternal grandfather was at Harrow and Cambridge (he was from St. Johns Wood) and I had a hard time understanding him because he used this odd boarding school slang.

"Bob's your uncle" comes from Arthur Balfour's uncle Robert Cecil. People thought the only reason a fop like Balfour rose in politics was because Prime Minister Cecil was his uncle.

Balfour was famous for saying, "Nothing matters much and very little matters at all."

Thin

http://www.effingpot.com/slang.shtml

And check out Chris Brookmyre's website if you go to Scotland - he has a glossary for its slang. Just like people from Manchester, the Scots pretend that what they speak is English.