Like most families, we’ve accumulated an odd collection of words and sayings.
For the fun of it, we’ve started writing them down.
“Family” includes Arthurs, Baineses, Bouwers, Burns, Claydons, Collards, Dixons, Ellis-Kings, Evelyns,
Gallaghers, Gordons, Harrisons, Harrison-Bouwers, Healiffs, Healys, Hugheses, Iliffs, Janeses, Kings,
King-Sheards, Macarthurs, Mazes, Quintons, Taggarts, Tomatoes, Westerhoffs… and anyone else who can
stand the shame.
Number of entries so far: 982 .
latest additions
Pinchmi-Wel verse : A little-known acquaintance of Adam and Eve ● 11 Aug >
city of screaming tyres n : Oxford ● 11 Aug >
Chi n : Chichester, the (only) city in West Sussex ● 11 Aug >
word association football n : Word association ● 11 Aug >
which is why I’m bothering telling you so exp : Used after explaining the relevance of an apparently tangential comment ● 11 Aug >
misread between the lines v : Detect subtext that the speaker/writer didn’t intend ● 28 Jul >
as your mummy say, you’ll grow into it exp : I accept that the clothing I have supplied is rather too large for you ● 28 Jul >
named after famous letters of the alphabet adj : Named unduly prosaically ● 28 Jul >
Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey! exc : Oh for goodness’ sake! An expression of exasperation ● 28 Jul >
audio black n : Silence ● 28 Jul >
you may walk down the garden to pick corn, but you must run back! exp : One of Clare’s gardening homilies based on the fact that the moment you pick corn, the sugars (yummy) start to change to carbohydrates (dull) ● 28 Jul >
politician’s syllogism n : A faulty decision-making process that follows this sequence:
Something must be done ➠ This is something ➠ We must therefore do this ● 26 Jul >
book view
Book view lets you browse the phrasebook by date added,
alphabetically or by popularity.
explorer
The explorer lets you:
search by word, definition and collector
browse by word, definition, collector or date.
collectors
If you’re wondering who all these people are, Collectors
will give you an idea.
(If you’re not you’d find it crushingly dull.)
all entries
0000
1-2-3 wash yourself, ducky!
14155
81
a boy is a boy…
a chill wind in the Trossachs
a crow, letting
a day late and a dollar short
a kangaroo loose in the top paddick
a light to lighten the genitals
a peach of a boat
a pint of water’s a pound and a quarter, except in US where it’s less
a touch of the don’t-want-to-goes
A-flute
aber eine wurst hatte zwei ende
abratadabra
accident
Action Town
add more lightness
AFM
ah-ahs
aha, Rasputin, the mad monk, climbing up those Russian steppés!
ahiggit ahugget
alec tricity
aleebee
alibaba
all of a sudden a big black pudding came floating through the air
all the way round sir?
All’ Barone
ambliance
American seat
amontiddly-doh
amtriguous
ancestor tea
and hadn’t we the gaeity at Phil the fluter’s ball
and the band played Believe it if you like
another saucer of milk?
anti-cretinous
any more laid back, his bum would fall off
appalAchian contrOllay
aprishotts
are bears Catholic?
are we gentry or do we stack?
ars bin
arsnip
as innocent as a nun at a bus stop
as thick as an elephant bap
as your mummy say, you’ll grow into it
ashpan
assumptions make an ass of ump and tions
audio black
Aunty Brute
Aunty Mark
Australian naming
autocucumber
automagically
avian fornication
B I tish
B-fart
babu peechi lal
baby abluga
back dazzler
bagaloons
Barley-sugar Legs
barsteward
Basingrad
basking hickory stick
bastardsphere
bat tsch-tsch
bathroom thought
be told!
bearded mushrooms
bee-loud glade
beef cut
beefa leefa
beep conveyor
Beezlebub
Belgian pish
belten our tights
Ben Yehuda
bet that’s cooled his biryani down a bit
Betelgwayzay
betty swallocks
bezz pawk
biddle biddle
bidet
big clock
big crisp
big organs run in the family
Biggles flies undone
Bildad the Shuhite
bim
bingbongabangbang
birdy num-num
bish
BKJ
black-coated workers
blick auf
blind mullet
bloody great balloons
blop
blue and green should never be seen except on a donkey’s back
BO-er
Bob Cox
bobaligoo
Bob’s your parent’s sibling
body coddler
bog
bog lolly
bogflosher
bogpaper music
boil the billy
boinga
boîte sur toit
bonbon ching gum caramel!
bong
bongo wongs
boom and scrunch
Boom-holé
Botticchrachi
bouncealine
Brandywine Thistlebottom
breathe in, it’s good for you
brown katies
brunty
bug rake
bum in the air
bum of the flightle bee
bumbag aloo
bumbalo bag
bumcack
bumhug
bumnuts
bumpity bolliko
bumpity-bolliko
burgalarm
Burly Chassis
buttons on a wall
by gum I’m stuck. What am I?
canned elephant’s prick
can’t get his tongue round his Rs
case case case
cash’n’flash
cast nasturtiums
castrated
catch a falling poo
chained to the oar of a magnificent galley
changed his 40 for two 20s and found he wasn’t wired for it
charge like a wounded bull
charming ladies
cheerum chorum chaw chocalorum
Chi
chill on the kidneys
chilli gone barmy
chilly bin
chocolate board
chutney
cigar-shaped aluminum tube in the sky
city of screaming tyres
Claypots
Cla’am
cleveh
clever people like me who talk loudly in restaurants
clickage
clootie
cock a deaf ’un
cock-a-leg
cockpit ape
code yellow
coffinated
collapsize
Columbo bladder
combine hoover
come to the cookhouse door, boys!
conkerbox
contribute!
contrived delights of LA
cooking fat!
Coorg’s
Copper Pisspot, The
Cornish nasty
couldn’t organise a black pudding
cover it over quick, Jemima!
cowp
crack the sads
crank tea
cronky donkey
crop dusting
crunchy plate
cuddly tick bird
cunkspangle
cunsternoon afterble
curioxity
curtains generation
da hoover’s broke
daddy socks
dance of the bogbrush fairies
dangleway
de petits pois
dead, and never called me mother
defillibrator
deg
Déjà Vu
delusions of adequacy
Depeche Mode
der dee twiddly, dee twiddly, dee botty-cracks
dere ’tis!
desecrated coconut
dial, face, mug, pan or mat
diddle diddle dumpling, mice and John
didn’t want it ANYway!
disgusterous
do a Thomas
do I have to eat the beak?
do it self!
do not the gate
do you want me to write a letter?
doit
don fly!
donkey manure
donkeys
don’t bandy legs with me
doobry
dots
Douglas Badger
down the red lane!
downside up
Dr Thos
Draconia
drafty draft
dry as a Nullarbor rabbit
ducklings
dudu
dudu maki
dumsey-whumnuts
dunny diver
dusty end
E-Type punt
earbash
East Ham
EBI
ecilop
effluent
eh bien, merde alors
eh wallah
elderflosh
elephant paper
elephants and teaspoons
elsan position
elsh
emPHAHsis on the wrong syllAHble
empty sugar bags
encambula
enough blue to make a pair of sailor’s trousers
envelote
epoophany
espikkin wahds a weezdum
Eugene One-Gin
everybody’s got to be somewhere
extinguished
Fabrézé
Fairy Nuff
fall over blackwards
fart young smeller
fartidoodalus
fast thinking walk
Father Twiss-Twiss
festive gooch
FHB
fiat lux, a remark attributed to God
Fiddlywaxeye
fimsy
fin de saison
fire eng truck
fissle
fizzy knitting
flaming brandinis
flappy meats
flappy plate
flappyfishogram
flaptop
flat out, like a lizard drinking
flatusphere
flea rake
flippin’ ug
flock of sparrows
floor sweepings
floordrobe
flopsam & jepsam
flosh
Floss
fluff
flutterby
fly squatter
FOFO
fok strongbody
for Ron
Forderism
forgetty bowl of naise
forn prongs
foul infidel! Know you have trod on the toe of Abul Abulbul Amir!
fox’s puss
fraggleflops
front loader
full-fat electricity
fundo-cubital dislocia
furphy
fustercluck
garnsed up
gash
gawn awf and gawt lawst
gee what great looking kids – are they adopted?
generation J
get aht t’road ye silly beggar!
get off and milk it!
get off home with you!
give every flying moment something to remember it by
glass cherries
Gnomey Alewife
go commando
go swimming with the children
Goat Herders’ Guide to the Galaxy (or GHGTTG)
gobble
god rest you jerry mentlemen
goggrybaggies
Golliwog railway
good girl, Daddy
good moaning
goodndit
goosegog
gorillas
grabled exnaplation
Grauniad
graunty / gruncle
Great Aunt Pottymouth
Grey Funnel Line
Grindelchomps
grouse
gubby
Gusto
haddoncave
Hairy Pudder
hand in one’s badge and gun
hankerchoof
Harwich for the Continent, {Frinton} for the incontinent
hatches, matches and despatches
haus sik
have speaks
he seems nice
head-canon
helmetball
here’s a tanner each to go away
hey little horsey, don’t you stop
hey, Mr Squirrel, pull your pants up!
he’s got that round his neck
hiding behind the door when the brains were handed out
Higwi Kombi
His Majesty’s Lunchbox
hoddududuh
hoggry tiglets!
hogwashing hat
hoist on his/her/your own door-bomb
hold back my sleeve while I put my finger to my forehead
hollow legs
holly bush
home again, home again, jiggedy jog
homeopathic vodka
honey money
honker
hoof-hearted
hopsital
hopt out
Horrible Life
Horrids
horse apples
horse droppings
horse’s douvers
hot bottyflosher
hot holders
hot will grow cold, if greedy will wait
how awdinawy!
how’s your belly off for spots?
hullabaloo
humididity
hyper-bowl
hypodemic nerdle
I can walk from here
I Clavdivs
I could have cooked at home
I did not know that death had undone so many
I don’t boil my cabbages twice
I expect nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.
I have had an elegant sufficiency
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons
I laughed until I stopped
I lift up my finger and I say tweet tweet
I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by
I only dropped them once
I remember being in Scotland
I saw Esau sitting an a seesaw
I see said the blind man as he walked into a lampost
I takin’ my sack and my boots
I thought we were having a PSA
I thought you were complaining about the bouzouki
I wanna beetroot
I want gets nothing
I want to watch me daddy pee
I was a fool to think the old Percy was dead
I would as lief ’erd ‘ens
idées au dessus de son gare
if he fell into basin full of boobs he’d come out sucking his thumb
if I could walk that way I wouldn’t need the talcum powder
if I wasn’t a gunner I wouldn’t be here
if UCP on tripe don’t eat it
if you can’t help don’t hinder
if you can’t trivialise it it’s not worth saying
if you enjoyed it half as much...
if you get there first, draw a chalk line; if I get there first, I’ll rub it out
if you have been, thank you for listening
if you’re up that way with your teeth
Ikea name
Iliff Point
Iliff Wight
imaginary friend
in all my born days
in days gone by
in heated agreement
in the nothings
include me out
insult
is it not passing fair to be a King and ride in triumph through Persepolis?
it has a better chance now
it was in the last place I looked
it’s been a bad year for Scottish hill farmers
it’s just an if-statement
it’s no skin off my teeth
it’s not rocket surgery
it’s only a trifle said the monkey
it’s only me Naymee!
it’s the water
it’s worse than the ticktolleroo
I’ll have the other half now
I’ll raise a bunion on his Spanish onion
I’m as old as my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth
I’m taking it back
I’ve got my big eating hat on!
jagular
jam sandwich
Japanese jibble-jobs
Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey!
Jo-Jo le Plongeur
jock
jock
Joe Blake
jolly hockey sticks
kabiss
Kahula
katsik
kelp
kettle
King Midas has ass’s ears
kiss me WHAT‽
kiwi
knicker picker
knock it on the head
kom bibi, bibi!
Krapy Rubsnif
kumu
kwinoa
ky-oo Daddy!
ladies of negotiable affection
lah-pom
land of hopeless Tories
lapsang shoepong
law of diminishing astonishment
laxadaisical
le chien retourne a son propre vomissement
le grand fromage lui-même
le très chose
leaf blower
leave it to cook
left hand down a bit
let it cuik!
let my son have the ball!
Lethal Festival
let’s find out, shall we?
let’s put the roof on first
let’s put the roof on first…
Li Phook
lie like a flatfish
light a candle to Saint Anthony
like a goanna up a gum tree
like Lot’s wife
like the fat lady – all behind
limerish
listen to the silence!
little birdie flying high
little teapots have big spouts
Liztrak
lobster pop
loggy sticks
long may your big jib draw
longhetti
longwe liklik
Lontink
looks like you’ve been working on it for eight hours
Lord Jesus hangs on a peg. Which peg does he hang on?
lubricants
lumps
lumpy ming fruit
Ma son’s a prawn
madman in the attic
maflingo
Maggie Murphy’s please park prettily
make friends in cookhouse
makes your eyebrows sweat
manchester
Mangerton (going)
Marcus Aurelius
mardy
may your wheels turn square and your petrol turn to water!
mece
mental floss
mexicakes
Milly-Molly-Mandy house
mingo
minion
Ministry of Tidy Folk
Ministry of Tidy Ruins
misery bite
misery chest
mismanglement
misread between the lines
Miss Moppett
Miss/Master Flum Bum
mloddy
mollydooker
more of a meal than a drink
Moses
most highly flavoured gravy
Mount Ararat
Mount Toberead
move your lips!
mozarella
Mr Brown upstairs smoking
Mr Bump
muchos cocineros!
Muggerborski
Mulligan’s Tyres
murano
my aunt, having made a telephone call, is feeling very much better
my back, my belly and my two sides
my colleague of the sandpit
my wife’s wedding anniversary
my word, Hetty
myzled
Nacirema
named after famous letters of the alphabet
nanny nagface
nice parking job, big guy!
niggs
nim
nipple cake
no bones in it!
no fun allowed
no one knows me in Melbourne, so it doesn’t matter what I wear. Everyone knows me in Yarragon, so it doesn’t matter what I wear!
no use to man or dog
no, it was a new one
no, it’s just the way I’m breathing
noddles
North Pole, duty penguin
north-south-west
nose pie
not much of anything, but well and truly elegant
Notlob
now mighty Caesar turned to clay might stop a wall to keep the wind away
now the weather turns quite dirty and the clock it strikes five-thirty
noxious weed
noy
NQOTD
nucking futter
oatygoats
obsquecious
obstacular
oddfather / oddmother
Odgers
oh bother!
oh dear… how sad… never mind
oh Lucky Jim!
oi’m a moinah
old bagaloon
old folk joke
omzetbelasting
on pots hooray!
on the way to Meeting, I saw a butterfly and it reminded me of God
on the wonk
one goat!
One I love, Two I love, Three I love, I say
one more shirt will do me
one up, one down, one polisher
one-legged Santa at an arse kicking party
ontray!
oomagoolie
op
open the breach and fire the gun
operator
oponopof
optical illusion, man!
optometrist method
ordinary Australian tea
organ donor
orpathedic
osh
oslo
our friend who travels on his belly
ours
ouzo
Oyé
p-o-tat-oes
PAC
Page Nine
palanquin hee, palanquin ho
palayorno
pang!
panty
par cark
park by ear
park-anywheres
parroty error
pas de freinage violent inutile
pasteurised is best
paucey
Pawdawfawdy
PEBUCK
peelywally
peelywally baggie
peepy-eyed
percussive maintenance
perslongings
PhD point
pick a note or go home
pick up fagends
pictureskew
piece of chelief
pif-pof-paf
Piglet
pimps
pince mie
Pinchmi-Wel
pingams
pinghole
pither
pitiless bottom
pixies
PLAN AHE
playback
plug
plup in a cup
POETS day
poffle
pointèd stick
politician’s syllogism
poo tickets
Pope scuttle
Poppa Piccolino
popular beat combo
pornograph
potato sock
poverty model
practise beforehand which ruins the fun
prat flaps
premium bomb
prickly pig
priest car
priestage
priffs
pron
propelleper
prunt
puffin break
pugsaw jizzle
pump
pumpkin time
punctuality is a politeness of kings
pune or play on words
purple-headeds
pushen
put fur/hair round it!
put it away – nothing wrong with it
put the lumps in the gravy
p’daahlo
QB
queece
rabbit of negative euphoria
rattle your dags!
ready-ready
rectal floss
redbrick
renana
rent to the ideal
respectawiggle
richtigetonneohnenachbarnprüfenstolz
Riding to Llandudno on a charabanc…
roastby spuds
rough as a badger
RTFM
rumble-tumble
run around to get wet
SA0
sadlydie
saganaki!
said Aunt Helga
Saint Sean
salad pie
samting, nating
sarandoppity
sat in a tyre
sausinge
scraper
seagull
sealion
second coffee
senseless man
shabby and miscellaneous
sham-PAG-nee
shenzi
sherman
shith-ooze
shitzu
shivery bite
short arms, deep pockets
shot a bunny
showing all you possess
shrapnel
shrimp-wrapped
shusho
shut up and give your arse a chance
sickly cake
Silliam William
Sister / Brother
sixpence!
SLAB DISH PIG GUFF
slap it in the middle and we’ll all get a bit
slimy ming fruit
sloppies
smells like coffee, looks like cocoa
smoko
Smoky Tree, the
Snablats
sniggle
snorker
snortelly snips
snot harpoon
snotty gobbles (or snot block)
so you do that
sof
soft day
soft poop
some people really work at being miserable
sooky
sorry-pardon
sound as a pound
soya sturvya
spacemen drop-off
spanish Tourette’s
sparkling plugs
sparrow piss
sparrowfart
spearmint wino
spider
spider werb
Spindleshanks
splash and dash
splash me boots!
spoons
spose
squabble & beak
square eyes
square measles
squashed fly biscuits
squeamful
St Reatham
stabbing
Stephen Physics
Steve
stiffie
Stinkyniger
Stirling Moss, chica/chico!
straight-straight-straight
stuck in me clack
stumps (or call stumps)
stunned mullet
subtropical swimming paradise
sun, sea, sand and, er…, palms
surface filing
Suss-ar-ekal!
susu
susu bilong bulmacow
sweat cobs
swing-door face
swooshbox
T-rain
tadpoles
take the smooth with the rough
takes the skin off your teeth
talkie-walkie
tall, dark and handsome… and slightly out of focus
taramadiddle
tassel
tasting diamonds
teaching wolves to chase sledges
Teetee de Boof
tell it not in Gath
tentacles
Teshco
testiculae loquans
testiculate
thalassa! thalassa!
thank you Mrs Lowsborough Goosborough
that man did smack me with a needle!
that’s an acquired taste: you either like it or you don’t
that’s easy for you to say
that’s pissed on me chips!
that’s small onions
that’s the badger!
that’s your shauri!
the artist is making a joke
the blind Doges of Venice
the camels are coming hurrah, hurrah!
the chop
the crow makes wing to th’ rooky wood
the customer is always the customer
the door’s not shut on my genius but…
the full catastrophe
the gap towns
the good ship Slap-it-with-a-ruler
the job’s a good ’un
the Marmalade Bush
the nut holding the steering wheel
the pit is in
the telephone upon the wall
the value of your investment can fall as well as plummet
The Whizzer There Was
then on Friday… no, tell a lie, it was the Saturday
there are gazelles in the thicket
there was a young man of Tralee
there we are then!
there’s a ghost, there’s a ghost, throw a flannel at its face!
there’s no show without Punch
thermosk
they are curlews of the fenland!
they’ll never sell ice creams at that speed
those aren’t bananas they’re plantains
thoughcus
three ha’p’orth of gawd help us
three-ee blice
thunderwobbler
tibbit!
ticky tacky
tight as a crab’s arse under water
time to put clothes on
Tinkwinky Teapot
tinkywinky
tiny dragon
tisbic
tisswiss for Mummy
toasty bombola
toed in the hole
tolerably early night
Tony Tortoise
too much admin
tramampoline
trivium
tronken
trough
trowers
trypo
Turd & Cabbage
turn the knob on your side
two minutes’ silence for the joke that just died
two-six
ump and tions
un joo lating
undercrackers
undercrunk
underneath-th-th
uninvited guest at every conversation
unleaded
unmatched pointer
up to a point, Lord Copper
up your end
Useless
vacs up nice
vauum
village aunty
visitors! Not visitors AGAIN!
Vladdy the Baddy
vladivostok
vogon
vollay!
vollyvongs
vulture capitalist
wadundudundu
wall botherer
Waly Disneq
wankpalazzo
wankpanzer
warned in a dream
warning-warning
Warr-Doorr
wash horses
washing machine
we are the cockyolly birds all red and green and gold
we won’t have to go to Wales now I brung yer ’ere
wee board
wee knights
well and truly sought after
well that barrel didn’t need scraping
wellcome home
Wert
we’ve squeezed the goodness out of that
whackers
whackysticky
what a day dad had!
what a fall of royalty!
what about a water bottle Wattle?
what has it got in its pocketses?
what mind is here o’erthrown
what will you have? said the waiter
whearr be ye to?
when a man is tired of Bracknell…
when I was a little girl like you…
when you get to the final, you win
where we have been no-one shall find, For not a trace have we left behind
where we have been, no-one can tell
where’s the yucky bowl?
which is why I’m bothering telling you so
which wind begins with F?
while you’re on your feet…
whin
whipper snipper
white horse
white seals
whocares
who’s died?
who’s going round the roundabout?
who’s “she” – the cat’s mother?
Whydofools
william-nilliam
windowscreen
winnebago
wishywashy place
wisp
with two plombs
wi’ oor knickers hangin’ doon
wo der Kaiser zu fuss geht
wobblevoice
wobulence
WOMBAT
word association football
worms’ boggin’ holes
Wrox-ham
wut‽
yam all right our kid?
yellow is mellow, but if it’s brown flush it down
Yizanastikov the Russian
you are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You are very ugly today, Pa / Ma Ubu!
you can go off people
you daft ha’p’orth!
you may walk down the garden to pick corn, but you must run back!
you must give me the recipe
your egg’s broken
your tiny hand is frozen!
you’ve all done very well
yow cor wack it
yuckerypoogens!
zembil
zizzer-zoof seeds
zlotniks
_y-tiger
’twill fit!!
inclusion criteria
Nothing particularly strict, really. Just looking for words and phrases that
are used more than never by Mark & Naomi and their relatives (personal insults
and bad swears aside, of course: if you’re looking for terms like Fingers Forder
or motherforker you won’t find them here, oh deary me no).
Terms in general usage don’t really belong, unless used with a particular twist.
Regional expressions, on the other hand, are great – the weirder the better.
how to contribute
If you are able to improve an existing entry, or just have a comment to make, feel free
to drop Mark a line.
If you are able to improve an existing entry, or just have a comment to make,
use the comment facility (bottom of each word page).
If you have one or two submissions, send them to Mark. If you have lots, let him know and he’ll
set you up with an editor account .
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