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	Short for aggravation, it's the sort of thing you might expect at a football match. In other words - trouble! There is sometimes aggro in the cities after the pubs shut!

	What's for afters? When you hear a kid say that they are asking what is for dessert. Nothing if they didn't eat their liver and greens!

	If someone asks you if you want to come out for a bevvy, they are asking you to the pub for a beer. Bevvy is just short for beverage, but in this context the beverage in question is obviously of the alcoholic nature!

	This is a well used phrase. It is added to the end of sentences a bit like and that's it! For example if you are telling someone how to make that fabulous banoffee pie you just served them, you would tell them to boil the condensed milk for three hours, spread it onto a basic cheesecake base, slice bananas on top, add some whipped double cream, another layer of banana, and Bob's your uncle!

	Something you have after twenty pints of lager and the curry. A lotta bottle! This means courage. If you have a lotta bottle you have no fear.

	To have a butchers at something is to have a look. This is a cockney rhyming slang word that has become common. The reason "butchers" means a look even though it doesn't rhyme is because it is short for "butchers hook" and "hook" of course, does rhyme.

	Another one I heard a lot as a kid - usually when I was making up excuses for how the window got broken or why my dinner was found behind the sofa. My Dad would tell me I was talking a load of codswallop. American kids might be talking baloney under the same circumstances.

	You'll often hear a Brit say "cor"! It is another one of those expressions of surprise that we seem to have so many of. It will sometimes be lengthened to "cor blimey" or "cor love a duck", depending on where you are. "Cor blimey" is a variation of "Gawd Blimey" or "Gor Blimey". They are all a corruption of the oath "God Blind Me".

	Gen means information. If you have the gen then you know what is going on. Also, to "gen up" is to research a subject or to get some information about something.

	This simply means call me. (You often hear Brits use the word "us" to mean "me".)

	If you are really lucky or flukey, you are also very jammy. It would be quite acceptable to call your friend a jammy bastard if they won the lottery.

	A short sleep, forty winks, or a snooze. You have a kip in front of the telly on a Sunday afternoon.

	This is a way of saying run! or run for it! Usually said by kids having just been caught doing something naughty. Well it was when I was a kid!

	If you have the lurgy it means you are ill, you have the flu. Don't go near people with the lurgy in case you get it!

	If something is naff, it is basically uncool. Anoraks are naff, salad cream is also naff. You could also use it to tell someone to naff off, which is a politer way of telling them to f*** off!

	To nut someone is to "head butt" them. Nutting is particularly useful when at a football match.

	This is quite a new expression - I have no idea where it came from. Anyway, it is now quite trendy to say that something which is total crap is "pants". For instance you could say the last episode of a TV show was "total pants".

	Well, here the pavement is the sidewalk and a pavement pizza is a descriptive way of saying vomit. Often found outside Indian restaurants early on a Sunday morning.

	A "piss up" is a drinking session, a visit to the pub. There is an English expression to describe someone as disorganised which says that he or she "could not organise a piss up in a brewery"!

	This has two meanings. The first is cooked oatmeal that you would have for breakfast. The second - as in " doing porridge" - means serving time in prison. There was even a comedy TV series called "Porridge" about a prisoner, starring Ronnie Barker of "The Two Ronnies" fame.

	This term has been revived recently by Jamie Oliver, one of Britain's popular young TV chefs. Sometimes written phonetically as "pukka tukka" or simply abbreviated to "pukka", it means super or smashing food, which, of course, is how he describes all his food.

	Yet another term for drunk, sloshed, or plastered. You Yanks might say loaded. (In the UK, "loaded" is a men's magazine that covers sex and football.)

	Short for "scrumptious", this is a word that would be used to describe some food that was particularly good (and probably sweet and fattening). Or it could also be used to describe a girl or guy as attractive!

	One of the things Americans find hardest about the Brits is our sense of humour. It is obviously different and is mainly based on irony, sarcasm, and an in-built desire to "take the piss". This has nothing to do with urine, but simply means making fun of someone.

	If something is going well with no problems, we would say it is "tickety-boo"!

	To "throw a wobbly" or to "throw a wobbler" means to have a tantrum. Normally happens when you tell your kids they can't have an ice cream or that it's time for bed.

	"Blimey, I haven't heard from you for yonks." If you heard someone say that it would mean that they had not seen you for ages!

ENTRIES AND DEFINITIONS BY MIKE ETHERINGTON FROM HIS SMASHING BOOK,
THE VERY BEST OF BRITISH: THE AMERICAN'S GUIDE TO SPEAKING BRITISH,
COPYRIGHT © 2000 MIKE ETHERINGTON. USED BY PERMISSION.
LIKE THESE? VISIT MIKE'S SITE AT effingpot.com FOR HEAPS MORE.