Americans Guess British Slang!

We didn't want to be tossers anymore so we decided to study up so we could know our onions. Boom. British slang accomplished.

[henryhalliday]

Yeah tosser doesn’t really mean stupid. It’s an insult, similar to “wanker”. A little bit like calling someone an asshole... be prepared for a reaction if you call someone that here!

[vernonallen]

To know your onions, is to be quite knowledgable or skilled in a particular field.

[lukeejshepherd]

As an English person, this is absolutely hilarious 😂 - also, don’t call your friends tossers!!! It’s ruder than you think! Oh and peace ✌️ is the other way round!!

[Lily_The_Pink]

Starkers just means naked, crazy doesn't come into it. We in the UK often say stark bollock naked. The word stark also means bare or severe as in 'the stark reality'
I've never heard the word bants...

[gavinreid]

I saw an American use the expression Old biddy, I always thought this was only used in northern England.

[danjones]

Very good, though the V sign at the end is the English equivalent of flipping the bird, the V sign, with the hand facing out means peace or victory.

[aarjaycee]

as others have said here be very careful about calling anyone a tosser it is NOT simply a stupid person, it's an habitual masturbator
I'm assuming "bants" is a more recent and common among younger folk term/abreviation of banter Careful with those V signs too guys YIKES!

[krisinsaigon]

in olden days before cars, when a horse was too old to pull a cart anymore, the owner would sell it to someone who would slaughter it, take it apart and sell the bones for glue and the meat i guess for dog food. The man who disposed of horses which had been worked so much they could work no more was called the knacker, and the place they disposed of the horse was called the knacker's yard.

When we say we are knackered, we mean we are as tired as one of those old horses, cannot work anymore, and are only fit to have our bones boiled to glue. It's idiomatic, in that knackered really refers to the horse after it has been through processing, whereas we use to say we are ready for processing

[mrbritish]

Quid means pound. So 10 quid is just £10.

[carlhartwell]

I don't understand why so many of these types of translation videos or websites etc say that chips are what Brits call fries, it's really starting to annoy me! We have fries and we have chips, but they are not the same!

[benamos]

You and the ball and chain really used your loaf, now get on the blower and then go see a man about a dog. I'll see you down the local, mines whatever they have on tap.

[Crasharino]

It's weird that they even have a definition in there of what a tosser is, no one in the UK uses it to call someone stupid, it's pretty much just another insult like calling someone a dickhead.

[Harrisonived]

Impressive! You guys will be experts in no time. FYI the word 'quid' isn't a specific amount of money, it's just a slang word used to mean British pounds of any amount. Basically we use the word 'quid' to mean pounds in exactly the same way you guys use 'bucks' to mean dollars.

[alexanderwiles]

fag means the same thing in the uk its just that the term really means a bundle of burning sticks (which were also used to burn gay people) so thats why cigs are also called it

[stephenhumphreys]

Not bad score :-) If you're interested in a little more info, then - Fag as a word for cigarette is probably based on the word faggot, which was a term for a bundle of sticks or twigs which could be burnt as fuel or a torch or similar. There used to be a practice called 'fagging' in posh schools where younger boys would essentially act as personal servants for older boys - it's possible the use of the word as a slur grew from that, although I doubt anyone knows for sure, and the practice died out last century in Britain. Dosh is a slang term for money in general, as is dough and (more rarely these days) bread. Tosser is an insult, though it's hardly a top tier one, and the British habit of cheerfully insulting their friends probably makes it hard to tell for onlookers. And yes, in Britain the peace or victory sign is exclusively done with your palm facing out. The other way around it's an insult, like giving someone the finger!

[Garngad_bhoy]

Other slang words we use in Scotland for a quid is knicker/ county down/ buckeroo's

[tinamiles]

thats not bad guys you worked it out well

[fibrown]

You should try some Scottish slang like numpty, eejit, glakit, skiver, etc. As an AngloScot I still don't get them at times.

[dylanleddy]

If you think this is hard you should do brummy slang (as in slang for Birmingham UK), not even people in the UK know what I'm on about whenever I say that "I got of the buzz at the oss road cus I cor be arsed to way in traffic but I took a mooch off the path, then took a gambole and now my legs bost" I swear to god it's the funniest thing ever when people think I'm not speaking English at all especially when English isnt' their first language and ESSPECIALLY if my accent is more thick when I say it

[robertjackson]

tosser had to pause the video when he said salad 🤣