Stop in the Name of Pants!

  brillopads • A brillopad is a sort of wire pad that you clean pans and stuff with (if you do housework, which I sincerely suggest you don’t. I got ironer’s elbow from being made to iron my vati’s huge undercrackers). Where was I? Oh yes. When you say, “It was brillopads,” you don’t mean, “It was a sort of wire pad that you clean with!” You mean, “It was fab and groovy.”

  Do you see? Good night.

  bugger • A swear word. It doesn’t really mean anything but neither do a lot of swear words. Or parents.

  bum-oley • Quite literally bottom hole. I’m sorry but you did ask. Say it proudly (with a cheery smile and a Spanish accent).

  cardi • Cardigan. Like pulli (pullover), only different.

  chav • A chav is a common, rude, rough person. They wear naff clothes. A chav joke would be, “What are the first words a chav baby says to its single parent?” Answer: “What are YOU looking at??” Or: “If there are two chavs in a car and no loud music playing, what kind of a car is it?” Answer: “A police car.”

  chips • French fries.

  chuddie • Chewing gum. This is an “i” word thing. We have a lot of them in English due to our very busy lives, explaining stuff to other people not so fortunate as ourselves.

  clown car • Officially called a Reliant Robin three-wheeler, but clearly a car built for clowns, built by some absolute loser called Robin. The Reliant bit comes from being able to rely on Robin being a prat. I wouldn’t be surprised if Robin also invented nostril hair cutters.

  clud • This is short for cloud. Lots of really long boring poems and so on can be made much snappier by abbreviating words. So Tennyson’s poem called “Daffodils” (or “Daffs”) has the immortal line “I wandered lonely as a clud.” Ditto Rom and Jul. Or Ham. Or Merc. of Ven.

  conk • Nose. This is very interesting historically. A very long time ago (1066)—even before my grandad was born—a bloke called William the Conqueror (French) came to England and shot our King Harold in the eye. Typical. And people wonder why we don’t like the French much. Anyway, William had a big nose and so to get our own back we call him William the Big Conkerer. If you see what I mean. I hope you do because I am exhausting myself with my hilariosity and historiosity.

  div • Short for “dithering prat,” i.e., Jas.

  DIY • Quite literally “Do It Yourself!” Rude when you think it about it. Instead of getting someone competent to do things around the house (you know, like a trained electrician or a builder or a plumber), some vatis choose to do DIY. Always with disastrous results. (For example, my bedroom ceiling has footprints in it because my vati decided he would go up on the roof and replace a few tiles. Hopeless.)

  double cool with knobs • “Double” and “with knobs” are instead of saying very or very, very, very, very. You’d feel silly saying, “He was very, very, very, very, very cool.” Also everyone would have fallen asleep before you had finished your sentence. So “double cool with knobs” is altogether snappier.

  Eccles cake • A culinary delight from the north of England. Essentially, they look like little packets of dead flies—yum yum. Lots of yummy things come from the north of England: cow heel and tripe (a cow’s stomach lining with vinegar), and most delicious of all, cow nip nip (yes, I am serious).

  What you have to remember is that the northern folk are descended from Vikings, and frankly, when you have been rowing a boat for about three months, you will eat anything.

  fag • Cigarette.

  fandango • A fandango is a complicated Spanish dance. So a fandango is a complicated thing. Yes, I know there is no dancing involved. Or Spanish.

  first former • Kids of about eleven who have just started “big” school. They have shiny innocent faces, very tempting to slap.

  footie • Soccer.

  form • A form is what we call class at English secondary schools. It is probably a Latin expression. Probably from the Latin “formus ignoramus.”

  fringe • Goofy short bit of hair that comes down to your eyebrows. Someone told me that American-type people call them “bangs” but this is so ridiculously strange that it’s not worth thinking about. Some people can look very stylish with a fringe (i.e., me) while others look goofy (Jas). The Beatles started it apparently. One of them had a German girlfriend, and she cut their hair with a pudding bowl and the rest is history.

  Froggie and geoggers • Froggie is short for French, geoggers is short for geography. Ditto blodge (biology) and lunck (lunch).

  full-frontal snogging • Kissing with all the trimmings, lip to lip, open mouth, tongues…everything. (Apart from dribble, which is never acceptable.)

  gadzooks • An expression of surprise. Like for instance, “Cor, love a duck!” Which doesn’t mean you love ducks or want to marry one. For the swotty knickers amongst you, “gad” probably meant “God” in olde English, and “zooks” of course means…Oh, look, just leave me alone, OK? I’m so vair tired.

  get off with • A romantic term. It means to use your womanly charms to entice a boy into a web of love. Oh, OK then—snogging.

  gob • Gob is an attractive term for someone’s mouth. For example, if you saw Mark (from up the road who has the biggest mouth known to womankind) you could yell politely, “Good Lord, Mark, don’t open your gob, otherwise people may think you are a basking whale in trousers and throw a mackerel at you” or something else full of hilariosity.

  goosegog • Gooseberry. I know you are looking all quizzical now. OK. If there are two people and they want to snog and you keep hanging about saying “Do you fancy some chewing gum?” or “Have you seen my interesting new socks?” you are a gooseberry. Or for short a goosegog, i.e., someone who nobody wants around.

  gorgey • Gorgeous. Like fabby (fabulous) and marvy (marvelous).

  horn • When you “have the horn” it’s the same as “having the big red bottom.”

  in vino hairy arse • This is a Latin joke and therefore vair vair funny. The Latin term is “in vino veritas,” which means “truth in wine.” That is, when you are drunk you tell the truth. So do you see what I’ve done??? Do you? Instead of “veritas,” I say “hairy arse.” Sometimes I exhaust myself with my amusingnosity.

  Jammy Dodger • Biscuit with jam in it. Very nutritious(ish).

  jimjams • Pajamas. Also pygmies or jammies.

  Kiwi-a-gogo land • New Zealand. “A-gogo land” can be used to liven up the otherwise really boring names of other countries. America, for instance, is Hamburger-a-gogo land, Mexico is Mariachi-a-gogo land and France is Frogs’-legs-a-gogo land. This is from that very famous joke told every Christmas by the elderly mad (Grandad). Oh very well, I’ll tell you it.

  A man goes into a French restaurant and says to the French waiter, “Have you got frogs’ legs?”

  The waiter says, “Oui, monsieur.”

  And the man says, “Well, hop off and get me a sandwich then.”

  This should give you some idea of what our Christmases are like.

  knickers • Panties, briefs, things you wear to conceal girlie parts. Boys don’t wear knickers; they wear underpants or boxer shorts. Some of them wear underpants that have a Union Jack or a funny joke on them. So Jas says, but she is, as we are all too aware, mad.

  lippy • Oh come on, you know what it is! Lipstick!! Honestly, what are you lot like!

  loo • Lavatory. In America they say “rest room,” which is funny, as I never feel like having a rest when I go to the lavatory.

  maths • Mathematics.

  midget gem • Little sweets made out of hard jelly stuff in different flavors. Jas loves them A LOT. She secretes them about her person, I suspect, often in her panties, so I never like to accept one from her on hygiene and lesbian grounds.

  milky pops • A soothing hot milk drink, when you are a little person. (No, not an elf, I mean a child.) Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, when you are a child, people give words endings to make them more cozy. Chocolate is therefore choccy woccy doo dah. Blanket is blankin’. To
oth is tushy peg. Easy is easy peasey lemon squeasey. If grown-ups ever talk like this, do not hesitate to kill them.

  Mystic Meg • A mad woman in a head scarf and massive earrings who can predict the future. And probably lives in a tree house. A bit like Jas, really. Except that Jas hasn’t got a head scarf or earrings. And can’t tell the future. Apart from that (and the fact that Mystic Meg is a hundred), they are quite literally like identical twins.

  naff • Unbearably and embarrassingly out of fashion and nerdy. Naff things are: Parents dancing to “modern” music, blue eyeshadow, blokes who wear socks with sandals, pigtails. You know what I mean.

  nervy spaz • Nervous spasm. Nearly the same as a nervy b. (nervous breakdown) or an f.t. (funny turn), only more spectacular on the physical side.

  nippy noodles • Instead of saying “Good heavens, it’s quite cold this morning,” you say “Cor—nippy noodles!!” English is an exciting and growing language. It is. Believe me. Just leave it at that. Accept it.

  nuddy-pants • Quite literally nude-colored pants, and you know what nude-colored pants are? They are no pants. So if you are in your nuddy-pants you are in your no pants, i.e., you are naked.

  nunga-nungas • Basoomas. Girls’ breasty business. Ellen’s brother calls them nunga-nungas because he says that if you get hold of a girl’s breast and pull it out and then let it go—it goes nunga-nunga-nunga. As I have said many, many times with great wisdomosity, there is something really wrong with boys.

  pence • English currency. We used to have pounds and shillings and pennies until we “went metric”; now we have pence (or pee). (Although try telling Elvis the school caretaker that we have gone metric; he lives in the twilight world of the very elderly. I don’t think he knows Queen Victoria is dead yet.)

  Pizza-a-gogo land • Masimoland. Land of wine, sun, olives and vair vair groovy Luuurve Gods. Italy. (The only bad point about Pizza-a-gogo land is their football players are so vain that if it rains, they all run off the pitch so that their hair doesn’t get ruined. See also Chelsea players.)

  prat • A prat is a gormless oik. You make a prat of yourself by mistakenly putting both legs down one knicker leg or by playing air guitar at pop concerts.

  red bottomosity • Having the big red bottom. This is vair vair interesting vis-à-vis nature. When a lady baboon is “in the mood” for luuurve, she displays her big red bottom to the male baboon. (Apparently he wouldn’t have a clue otherwise, but that is boys for you!!) Anyway, if you hear the call of the Horn you are said to be displaying red bottomosity.

  snogging • Kissing.

  The Sound of Music • Oh, are we never to be free? The Sound of Music was a film about some bint, Julie Andrews, skipping around in the Alps and singing about goats. Many many famous and annoying songs come from this film, including, “The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of PANTS,” “You Are Sixteen Going on PANTS,” and, of course, the one about the national flower of Austria, “IdlePANTS.”

  spangleferkel • A kind of German sausage. I know. You couldn’t make it up, could you? The German language is full of this kind of thing, like lederhosen and so on. And Goosegot.

  spondulicks • A Sudanese term for money. Possibly.

  The reason we use it is because in olden days English people used to go to other countries where the weather was nicer (i.e., everywhere) and say to the leaders of these other countries:

  “Hello, what extremely nice weather you are having, do you like our flag?” And the other (not English) people would say: “Yes, it’s very nice, is it a Union Jack?” And the old English people would reply: “Yes. Where is your flag?” And they would say: “We haven’t got one actually.” And we’d say: “Oh dear. That means you have to give your country to us then.”

  That is how we became world leaders and also how we got foreign words in our language.

  By the way, it is a very good job that I have historosity at my fingertips; otherwise certain people (i.e., you) would feel hopelessly dim.

  spoon • A spoon is a person who is so dim and sad that they cannot be allowed to use anything sharp. That means they can only use a spoon. The Blunderboys are without exception all spoons.

  spot • Officially a blocked pore that gets all red and inflamed and sometimes has a white top on it. In reality something you get every time you need to look your best. You never get spots in concealed places—they are always on your nose or chin or on a sticky-out bit. Americans call them “zits” and I hope against hope this has nothing to do with the noise they make when you pop them.

  Spotty Dick • This is an olde English pudding named after an Elizabethan bloke called Dick. Which is nice. However, Dick was not blessed in the complexion department and was covered in boils and spots. Anyway, in honor of Dick’s spots a pudding was made up that had currants all over it to represent the spots. Think how pleased Dick must have been with ye olde Elizabethan folke leaning out of their windows as he passed and shouting, “Oy spotty Dick, we’ve just eaten your head…with some custard.” I hate to bang on about this because as you know I am a big fan of world peace, but in Hamburgese spots are called “zits.” Please don’t ask me why. Personally I think a pudding called “Zitty Dick” does not have the appeal and savoir faire of Spotty Dick. That is what I think. And I am not wrong.

  I am right.

  squid • Squid is the plural of quid and I do know why that is. A bloke owed another bloke six pounds or six quid, and he goes up to him with an octopus with one of its tentacles bandaged up, and he says, “Hello mate, here is the sick squid I owe you.” Do you see?? Do you see? Sick squid, six quid??? The marvelous juxtaposition of…look, we just call pounds squids. Leave it at that. Try and get on with it, people.

  strop • A “strop” is No. 3 on the famous “losing it” scale—see f.t.

  tart • A girl who is a bit on the common side. This is a tricky one, actually, because if I wear a very short skirt I am cool and sexy. However, if Jackie Bummer wears a short skirt it is a) a crime against humanity and b) tarty.

  Thunderbird puppets • Thunderbirds was an incredibly olde program on TV in the 1960s about something called international rescue and it was a puppet show. Mike Mercury and his gang rescued people on other planets and fought alien bodies in their Thunderbird spaceships. But really, the other planets were bits of old cardboard and you could see all the strings on the puppets, but best of all comedy wise the puppetry was done by some fool who was really crap at puppeteering. Mike clopped about with his feet about two feet off the ground and his eyes swiveling around, and Lady Penelope’s chauffeur Parker drove along with his hands off the steering wheel and his head facing backward. Not safe driving as such.

  tig • Tig is a childish game, which I would never play actually. If I did play it, I would know that it is a game about chasing people and when you catch up with them you tap them on the arm and say “tig.” And then they are “it” and have to chase you. The whole thing is tosh and a ludicrous waste of time. And silly. Some fool (Jas) told me that Hamburgese (well known for changing Billy Shakespeare’s language for no apparent reason…and by this I mean stuff like “aluuuuuminum” for aluminium and “fanny” for bottom, etc.), anyway, Jas says they call this game “tag.” Which is wrong and also spoon behaviour. But I mean this in a caring way.

  titches • A titch is a small person. Titches is the plural of titch.

  tosser • A special kind of prat. The other way of putting this is “wanker” or “monkey spanker.”

  vino tinto • Now this is your actual Pizza-a-gogo talk. It quite literally means “tinted wine.” In this case the wine is tinted red.

  welligogs • Wellington boots. Because it more or less rains all the time in England, we have special rubber boots that we wear to keep us above the mud. This is true.

  wet • A drippy, useless, nerdy idiot. Lindsay.

  whelk boy • A whelk is a horrible shellfish thing that only the truly mad eat. Slimy and mucuslike. Whelk boy is a boy who kisses like a whelk, i.e., a
slimy mucus kisser. Erlack a pongoes.

  About the Author

  LOUISE RENNISON is the internationally bestselling author of the angst-filled and award-winning Confessions of Georgia Nicolson. Louise lives in Brighton, the San Francisco of England (apart from the sun, Americans, the Golden Gate Bridge, and earthquakes).