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Slang Yer 'Ook

I've known 'freeze the balls off a brass monkey' in usage, typically with a literal interpretation (as in "Its so cold, there's a monkey outside crying"). Given the source, I'm not sure whether that specific evolution came indirectly through another part of the forces, or through the common usage. Either way, its great to find out a real meaning that actually makes sense.

(Assuming this isn't an apocryphal back-formation, as is sometimes the case for plausibly obscure terminology).
 
Missed this one had been posted this morning (apologies) but it's been circulated on social media now. Thanks for the shout-outs to my articles, David.

I have a friend who's currently serving in the RN, so I've asked him whether these terms are all still in use or if some of them have now changed.
 
Thande said:
Missed this one had been posted this morning (apologies) but it's been circulated on social media now. Thanks for the shout-outs to my articles, David.

I have a friend who's currently serving in the RN, so I've asked him whether these terms are all still in use or if some of them have now changed.
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Navy friend reports that essentially all of the RN slang is still in use, @David Flin .
 
It's interesting how some of those are words I've been intinately aquainted with all my life - mankey, chunter, sprog, among others - while some are like an alien language.

Much like mine, to much of the supposedly anglophone world.
 
Geordie said:
It's interesting how some of those are words I've been intinately aquainted with all my life - mankey, chunter, sprog, among others - while some are like an alien language.

Much like mine, to much of the supposedly anglophone world.
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As I've been reminded several times while overseas, I don't speak English, I speak Australian.
 
David Flin said:
Once, on a journey from London to Edinburgh, my car broke down not far from Newcastle. The nice breakdown man couldn't fix the car at the roadside, so shoved it on the back of the trailer and took us to Edinburgh.

He talked incessantly from Newcastle to Edinburgh, and I swear that I didn't understand a single word he said.

At least the Soviet Army officer who had learned his English in Newcastle had a reason to be incomprehensible.
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I might have mentioned this one before, but the first meeting of my Granda and my Uncle was good for that. Granda had lived his whole life in the south western corner of County Durham, but hs three children had moved about a little bit. When the youngest brought home a young man she was keen on, he thought it best to be hospitable to the southerner. Born in Kent, grew up in Essex and Norfolk. Proper Southern. So Granda was very welcoming, made plenty of small talk, all very nice. When my Auntie took the chap who became my Uncle for a walk later in the day, she was keen to know what he thought of her parents.

"Your Mum is very nice, and very proper. Your Dad seems lovely, but I can't understand a word he's saying."

When the walk was finished, Margaret helped her Dad put the kettle on. She was very close to her Dad, and wanted to know he approved of this chap she was rather fond of.

"I think he's a canny fella. Can't understand what he's saying, but he's canny enough."

It's thirty two years since Granda passed away, but if I or (more commonly) my brother ever say anything in a particularly broad accent in Brian's presence, he still gets flashbacks to his father in law.
 
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Oh, and my favourite bit of slang linked to David's list.

Scran is food, obviously. The Dining Hall at secondary school was known universally as The Scran, even by half of the teachers. Thus, dinnerladies became, inexorably and inevitably, to be referred to as Scranna Nannas. Not in their hearing, mind. You'd get a clipped ear.
 
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