Green’s Dictionary of Slang

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The Muvver Tongue choose

Quotation Text

[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 30: Other sayings for nippy weather are [...] ‘cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey’.
at cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, phr.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 89: He is a ‘kidder’ or ‘a bit of a kidpot, on the quiet’.
at bit of (a), n.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 41: ‘Not worth a pinch of cold shit’ means of no use to man or beast.
at not worth a pinch of..., phr.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 91: A gloomy person has got a face ‘like a wet week’.
at like a wet week under like a..., phr.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 96: It’s [...] enough to give you the screaming abdabs.
at screaming abdabs (n.) under abdabs, n.
[UK] (con. 1930s) Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 33: ‘Ackers’ for money came from the middle east.
at acker, n.1
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 42: The other function is a ‘Jimmy Riddle’, a ‘leak’, a ‘you and me’, (rhyming for ‘pee’).
at you and me, n.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 32: Throughout the East End ‘you and me’ means tea.
at you and me, n.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 11: Referring to my father again, he would say [...] ‘I could do with a laugh and a joke’.
at laugh and joke, n.
[UK] (con. 1930s) Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 21: Kate and Sidney: steak and kidney.
at kate and sidney, n.
[UK] (con. 1930s) Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 18: A hard-up person is [...] ‘stone coals and coke’.
at coal and coke, adj.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 65: Another skipping rhyme was ‘Salvation Army, all gone barmy, / All gone to heaven in a corned beef tin.’ As often as not, the beginning was altered to ‘Sally Sally Army’.
at Sally Ann, n.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 41: There is ‘arsehole lucky’ as well.
at arsehole lucky (adj.) under arsehole, n.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 94: Of a grubby-looking person: [...] black as Newgate’s knocker.
at black as Newgate knocker (adj.) under black as..., adj.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 91: A slow or absent-minded person [...] can be called ‘bacon-bonce’.
at bacon-bonce, n.1
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 71: The other day I picked up a quick half-bar through backing a good thing in the National.
at half a bar (n.) under bar, n.1
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 11: The above expressions did not catch on because there was no need for them; nor did ‘Wilkie Bards’ for playing cards, from the 1950s’ TV series ‘The Army Game.’.
at Wilkie Bards, n.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 64: ‘Come back with your hair on, you bald-headed bathbun.’ However, a lot of Cockney kids who sang that were of Irish descent. ‘Bathbun’ was a way of not-quite saying ‘bastard’.
at bath bun, n.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 88: Explanations of how things work or have come out are usually capped with [...] ‘Now you know how many beans make five’.
at know how many (blue) beans make five (v.) under beans, n.3
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 11: One or two rhyming expressions existed – ‘threepennies’, for ‘threepenny bits’, and ‘Manchesters’ – but were never much used.
at threepenny bits, n.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 85: Phrases for being in poor health have not altered [...] ‘A touch of the inky blue’ means flu.
at inky blue, n.
[UK] (con. 1930s) Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 18: To have things on credit [...] ‘On the book’, and in pubs ‘on the slate’.
at on the book under book, n.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 91: Bad eyesight and deafness are mildly ridiculed: ‘boss-eye’, ‘cock-eyed’.
at boss-eye, n.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 53: Cockney kids have always called out ‘Walla walla Jewboy’.
at Jew boy, n.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 81: Up to 1939 ‘nancy-boy’ and ‘pansy’ were names for elegantly-dressed young men. During the military service in the war (or if they went to prison) men came across homosexuality and a new meaning for ‘nancy-boy’.
at nancy boy, n.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 19: Collar : a holler boys holler.
at holler boys, holler, n.
[UK] (con. 1930s) Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 29: Head: loaf or crust, short for loaf or crust of bread.
at crust of bread, n.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 71: I went off for a good blow-out. Being well britched I wasn’t going to no coffee stall.
at breeched, adj.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 11: One media-invented rhyming phrase that has gone into general use is ‘Bristols’ (short for Bristol Citys).
at Bristol Cities, n.
[UK] Barltrop & Wolveridge Muvver Tongue 65: There was no verse for the Boy Scouts – perhaps ‘Brussel Sprouts’ said it all.
at brussel sprout, n.
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