Ricky Gervais Teaches You British Slang

You did say I had to tell you the derivation,

come on, I've told you.

This is getting a bit academic, innit?

Hi, I'm Ricky Gervais

and today I'll be teaching you some British slang.

[melodic orchestral music]

Bevvy, short for beverage,

usually means a beer, we say let's have a bevvy,

they usually mean go to the pub and have a few beers,

but it can be used as a hot beverage,

you can say let's have a bevvy and they mean a cup of tea.

I've got a little beer on the go at the moment,

it's not my favorite, it's a German wheat beer,

'cause I ran out of IPA, I'm not complaining,

but after this I'll probably start on the wine.

Cheesed off, fed up, he's cheesed off.

What's up, oh, you've upset him, he's cheesed off.

What am I cheesed off about?

Oh, well, I had to postpone some gigs,

I'm getting fat and old and tired, so yeah.

One's sort of transient, specific and one's just in general,

it's getting worse.

I'm not cheesed off about anything,

although anything can cheese me off quick,

I can go into a restaurant

and it'll be a lovely restaurant and quiet

and then they sit people too near me,

that's cheesed me off, yeah, okay, I'm annoyed now.

So in life, nothing really, nothing really,

nothing really upsets me too much,

but in reality any tiny thing

can just make things not perfect.

Grim.

You don't have the word, grim in America?

Oh, grim,

oh, it's perfect,

it can be anything from distasteful to really boring,

you know, like you'd say it about a really old,

broken, industrial town or something,

oh, mate, it's grim up there, it's grim.

You could say it about something's disgusting,

like oh, God, don't go near him, he's grim,

it's like ugh, horrible!

Grimy, I suppose it's from grimy.

Bog standard just means absolutely generic, normal,

it could apply to anything, bog standard car,

just a normal, off the production line,

everyone's got one, bog standard,

it does the job, it's nothing flash,

because bog here is also slang for toilet.

Barmy, you can't, you're finished,

he's barmy, he's [whistling], cuckoo [whistling].

Pants.

Well, two, there's two slang really,

pants is short for underwear, underpants,

you use it to mean trousers, we don't,

but pants in the slang sense strictly would mean rubbish,

that is absolute pants, that is awful,

it's not worth the trouble,

don't go and see that film, it's pants, rubbish.

Dishy, you'd say attractive,

a woman watching telly would say, oh, I like George Clooney,

he's dishy, it's not aggressive or seedy.

It would probably come from cuisine, wouldn't it?

Oh, what a lovely, yeah, it probably does mean

what a beautiful dish, what a lovely presentation,

it's basically equating George Clooney

to a big plate of pasta.

Chin wag, chat, talking, let's have a good old chin wag.

It's like an old sort of quaint term,

two middle aged women talking over the garden gate,

they're having a right old chin wag, look at them,

ooh, they're having a right old chin wag.

So yeah, it's that sort of thing.

Off-license.

You don't have off-licenses?

Oh, course you do, yeah, you'd call them liquor stores.

You couldn't drink there, but you could take away,

so it was to do with old sort of pub licensing laws

and sort of consuming things on the premises.

It's a liquor store as opposed to a licensed, a pub, yeah,

you can only get take away,

well, nowadays it's all delivered, innit?

I don't have to go out of the house at all.

Tosser.

Derogatory term for someone you don't respect is a tosser,

also it's probably the same derivation as wankers,

absolute, absolute wanker.

It's a slang word for masturbate,

so he's an absolute wanker, an absolute tosser,

but it doesn't mean that literally,

it just means you don't like him, you can't trust him,

he's a twat, he's an idiot, absolute [bleep] tosser.

I can't stand him, he's an absolute tosser.

Geezer.

He's a geezer, he's a bloke, he's a good lad,

it's a sort of a male sort of term,

there's a sliding scale of how much respect there is,

'cause he's an absolute geezer

could mean he's a sound bloke, he's a geezer,

he's a good laugh, he likes his beer and his football,

geezer, he's a right geezer, he's a right geezer, right,

oh, yeah, yeah, he likes to gamble, he likes to smoke,

he's a right geezer, right.

Or careful, he's a bit of a geezer, what do you mean?

He'll rip you off, he's a bit of a geezer,

it depends how you say it, yeah.

Shambolic.

Well, it's all over the place, there's no structure to it,

it's random, it's rubbish, it's shambolic, you know.

You'd go into a restaurant, who's running this restaurant?

It's absolutely shambolic!

The waiter over there, he didn't take my,

the table's wobbly, your maitre d's chewing,

this is [bleep] shambolic!

Anywhere where there's company,

anywhere there's the general public, you should know better.

Waz.

Well, short for wazzock, can be like idiot

or he's an absolute waz or it could be like oh, what a waz,

like things have gone wrong

or it could mean a piss, I'm just gonna have a quick waz,

I'm gonna have a waz.

I don't use that word, 'cause I'm educated.

Todger.

Affectionate term for a penis,

it's todger, that's his todger.

[gasping] He's got his todger caught in his zip!

You wouldn't get the Sopranos saying todger,

it's not a cool, it's not,

it's a quaint, acceptable euphemism for penis, I'd say.

Well, that was British slang with me, Ricky Gervais,

I hope you learned something, I did.

Thanks for watching, cheers,

that's slang, cheers, innit, cheers?

[light melodic music]

I don't know what that means, cheers!

Why is that cheers?

Cheers?

Does it mean cheer, cheer, cheers?

What does it mean?

We say cheers like thank you

and cheers, sort of touch glasses,

I don't know, anyway cheers.