In his stand-up show, British comedian Michael MacIntyre said: "You can actually use any word in the English language and substitute it to mean drunk. Wor lass - my girlfriend. Grand - a thousand (colloquial) usually referring to money. Lass - young woman (Scotland and northern England). Pre-decimal farthings, ha'pennies and pennies were 97% copper (technically bronze), and would nowadays be worth significantly more than their old face value because copper has become so much more valuable. The word derives from Middle English and Middle Dutch 'groot' meaning 'great' since this coin was a big one, compared to a penny. It is believed these terms were imported from India by returning servicemen. (Thanks Simon Ladd, June 2007). readies = money, usually banknotes. Possibly connected to the use of nickel in the minting of coins, and to the American slang use of nickel to mean a $5 dollar note, which at the late 1800s was valued not far from a pound. Slang British Money Terms. From the late 18th century according to most sources, London slang, but the precise origin is not known. seymour = salary of 100,000 a year - media industry slang - named after Geoff Seymour (1947-2009) the advertising copywriter said to have been the first in his profession to command such a wage. madza poona = half-sovereign, from the mid 1800s, for the same reasons as madza caroon. Minging - foul-smelling, unpleasant, very bad. Fuzz - old, derogatory slang for the police. The word cows means a single pound since technically the word is cow's, from cow's licker. "You should watch the mens team play cricket. 04. Jib - to gain entry without paying usually to a football stadium. Tony Benn (born 1925) served in the Wilson and Callaghan governments of the 1960s and 70s, and as an MP from 1950-2001, after which he remains (at time of writing this, Feb 2008) a hugely significant figure in socialist ideals and politics, and a very wise and impressive man. half a crown = two shillings and sixpence (2/6), and more specifically the 2/6 coin. Dead on - good-natured, kind, sympathetic. wonga = money. Toodle pip - archaic, posh form for "goodbye". Which Teeth Are Normally Considered Anodontia. It cannot cost a million dollars. Other variations occur, including the misunderstanding of these to be 'measures', which has become slang for money in its own right. Cock and hen - also cockerel and hen - has carried the rhyming slang meaning for the number ten for longer. Lost the plot: If you've heard this, simply put, it means crazy. Recent post: Are Groceries Cheaper In Nevada? Meaning. I am grateful to J Briggs for confirming (March 2008): "I live in Penistone, South Yorks (what we call the West Riding) and it was certainly called a 'Brass Maggie' in my area. Bender. Also find guides to Britain's transport system including roads, trains, buses and airports. Do Men Still Wear Button Holes At Weddings? Ape and monkey are considered offensive terms when they're used to describe a person of color. Back in the 1960s, it was illegal to be gay in the UK and so gay men began to use a kind of code language or slang that was a mix of Italian, Romany and rhyming slang. Give us a bell - call me on the telephone. Normally refers to notes and a reasonable amount of spending money. While this London centric slang is entirely British, it actually stems from 19th century India. There is also a view that Joey transferred from the threepenny bit to the sixpence when the latter became a more usual minimum fare in London taxi-cabs. You can find out more about that in this, Pavarotti he was a famous tenor so a Pavarotti is a tenner (10), If you want to read more about cockney rhyming slang and money, read this. For example 'Lend us twenty sovs..' Sov is not generally used in the singular for one pound. Learn more. . Piece - piece of bread, sandwich (Glaswegian). In finance, a Monkey is British slang for 500 pounds sterling. YBAs - Young British Artists - art movement of the 1980s including Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, Cornelia Parker and Tracey Emin. Backslang evolved for similar reasons as cockney rhyming slang, i.e., to enable private or secret conversation among a particular community, which in the case of backslang is generally thought initially to have been street and market traders, notably butchers and greengrocers. Dive - a dive usually refers to a dirty and dark pub or club. British Dictionary definitions for monkey monkey / ( mk) / noun any of numerous long-tailed primates excluding the prosimians (lemurs, tarsiers, etc): comprise the families Cercopithecidae (Old World monkeys), Cebidae (New World monkeys), and Callithricidae (marmosets)See Old World monkey, New World monkey Related adjective: simian brown = a half-penny or ha'penny. live, learn and work. In addition, Britain-specific words are included. Closie - Dundee parlance for a stairwell in a block of flats. Chip and chipping also have more general associations with money and particularly money-related crime, where the derivations become blurred with other underworld meanings of chip relating to sex and women (perhaps from the French 'chipie' meaning a vivacious woman) and narcotics (in which chip refers to diluting or skimming from a consignment, as in chipping off a small piece - of the drug or the profit). A clod is a lump of earth. ton = commonly one hundred pounds (100). . Pommy - a British person (derogatory, especially used by Australians). Here are the most common and/or interesting British slang money words and expressions, with meanings, and origins where known. bice/byce = two shillings (2/-) or two pounds or twenty pounds - probably from the French bis, meaning twice, which suggests usage is older than the 1900s first recorded and referenced by dictionary sources. Expand your U.K. slang vocabulary by learning some key British slang words and what they mean. Exactly when the words became slurs is unknown, but offensive comparisons of black people to apes date back hundreds of centuries. Wed like to share our expertise with you. All our resources are free and mapped to the Australian Curriculum. dough = money. Alternatively beer vouchers, which commonly meant pound notes, prior to their withdrawal. As India was under the rule of the British Empire, the term made it over to London, despite the fact there were no monkeys on British currency. job = guinea, late 1600s, probably ultimately derived from from the earlier meaning of the word job, a lump or piece (from 14th century English gobbe), which developed into the work-related meaning of job, and thereby came to have general meaning of payment for work, including specific meaning of a guinea. You can find us on our website https://theslangpodcast.com and from there you can see our transcript and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many more apps. "I never thought my friend would get married again but I just received her wedding invitation. A "par" breaches social and common courtesy, eg, a disrespectful comment could be seen as a "par." "Par" can also be used as a verb, eg, "You just got parred." This slang term could be a British abbreviation of the French "faux pas," meaning an embarrassing or tactless remark in a social situation. monkey = five hundred pounds (500). Yennep is backslang. two and a kick = half a crown (2/6), from the early 1700s, based on the basic (not cockney) rhyming with 'two and six'. deuce = two pounds, and much earlier (from the 1600s) tuppence (two old pence, 2d), from the French deus and Latin duos meaning two (which also give us the deuce term in tennis, meaning two points needed to win). Britain is known for its drinking culture, so 'chunder' is a word you'll hear frequently the day after a night out. I am just trying to help!". For ex: You mean he paid 300G for a house in the suburbs! An obscure point of nostalgic trivia about the tanner is apparently (thanks J Veitch) a rhyme, from around the mid-1900s, sung to the tune of Rule Britannia: "Rule Brittania, two tanners make a bob, three make eighteen pence and four two bob" My limited research suggests this rhyme was not from London. These are a few of the most common slang terms for pre-decimal coins: Coppers - farthing, halfpenny, penny coins. There seems no explanation for long-tailed other than being a reference to extended or larger value. Common use of the coal/cole slang largely ceased by the 1800s although it continued in the expressions 'tip the cole' and 'post the cole', meaning to make a payment, until these too fell out of popular use by the 1900s. bob = shilling (1/-), although in recent times now means a pound or a dollar in certain regions. half, half a bar/half a sheet/half a nicker = ten shillings (10/-), from the 1900s, and to a lesser degree after decimalisation, fifty pence (50p), based on the earlier meanings of bar and sheet for a pound. Now that youve got the slang down, youll want to work on your accent. A 'flo' is the slang shortening, meaning two shillings. Thats the end of our money series so remember to tune in for our next episode to see what new slang we have in store for you! For the uninitiated, Cockney rhyming slang can be a pretty confusing language which is probably best avoided if you dont know the ins and outs of it. This contributed to the development of some 'lingua franca' expressions, i.e., mixtures of Italian, Greek, Arabic, Yiddish (Jewish European/Hebrew dialect), Spanish and English which developed to enable understanding between people of different nationalities, rather like a pidgin or hybrid English. In South Africa the various spellings refer to a SA threepenny piece, and now the equivalent SA post-decimalisation 2 cents coin. I'm informed however (ack Stuart Taylor, Dec 2006) that Joey was indeed slang for the brass-nickel threepenny bit among children of the Worcester area in the period up to decimalisation in 1971, so as ever, slang is subject to regional variation. The silver threepence was effectively replaced with introduction of the brass-nickel threepenny bit in 1937, through to 1945, which was the last minting of the silver threepence coin. For ex: If I can sell all this stuff second hand then Ill be quids in. From there it came to mean home and was reattached to Drum and Bass. Popular Australian slang for money, now being adopted elsewhere. Equivalent to 10p - a tenth of a pound. Changes in coin composition necessarily have to stay ahead of economic attractions offered by the scrap metal trade. The British population most definitely has an island mentality and this was never more apparent than when the euro was introduced on January 1st 1999. Use In A Sentence: Wow, it is cold today! The word mill is derived simply from the Latin 'millisimus' meaning a thousandth, and is not anything to do with the milled edge of a coin. Vest - (usually) sleeveless, cotton undershirt. Tea - often used as an alternative for dinner up North, thus "What time is tea, mam, I'm starving". Clanger: A mistake. The 1973 advert's artistic director was Ridley Scott. Though familiar to many Londoners, the term "monkey" is actually Indian slang for a 500 rupee note, which used to have a monkey on it. 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