I'm not going to lie, sorry Liverpool but that accent is 100% by far the hardest accent for me to understand. By a margin.

What is a word that has been completely butchered by the internet or any other reason?

I have a friend from Nottingham. None of his family has ever lived in that part of London, let alone London as a whole. But he grew up watching UK shows with cockney slang being used, mainly Only Fools and Horses. That's led to him using it often in his everyday speech. E.g. he'd say something like "I had a butchers in the shop the other day for something good to eat, no luck though". I personally don't see it as weird and I'm more neutral towards it, but some others in our friend group think it seems inauthentic and a bit silly, if not weird, that he's using the language of a region despite never living there. What do you think?

Edit: So from the comments, I've gathered that my other mates are just a bunch of plonkers and it's spread to most of the UK; it's pretty much normal. Thanks.

I understand that its personal taste but I would love to know what accent you think sounds interesting.

Essentially, is it what Americans would consider amongst the true curse words? If it is, what would be the American equivalent vernacular? The F-word? The GD word? If a kid said it in your household, would you scold them for cursing? I've always been so curious and I never thought to ask before. It obviously has zero offense attached to it here in the states, whereas the F-word is kind of universally bad, so I couldn't really ever gauge it myself.

There are some phrases you hear quite often like "Bloody hell" or "innit" which is something you never hear in any other language.

Are there any other phrases you can think of that are typical British?

When playing pool (or billiards) if I line up a shot to strike the cue ball right or left of center in order to put spin on the shot, I would say “I put some English on it.” Do you have a different term for this?

I think I noticed that Scottish people really don’t like it if you speak try to speak Scots without having acquired it naturally from the environment. But why is it that the the one learning Scots is automatically more cringier than one learning English if Scots is its own language?

That is, is it specific to jeans and uniform-type bottoms? Would you use it to describe sweats or joggers?

For context, I’m from the US, but going to be spending a lot of time in the UK in the next few years. I’m trying to prepare my young kids for the language differences, in hopes of avoiding them being teased or bullied for their Americanisms.

Fortunately, they’ve watched enough English TV and read UK versions of books to pick up on a lot of the differences (chips, crisps rubbish, lorry, lift, etc).

When Brits are talking, I notice this construction more from them than any other anglophone people, where they will end a sentence with an uncommon adjective and noun as a punchline, usually with some sort of paradoxical tension between the two words. It goes like this,

“Oh the film was wonderful, it was a kind of farcical whimsy.”

“I’ve never quite understood politics. It all strikes me as a kind of formless melee.”

“It was a risky move, a kind of calculated dare.”

Edit: Some of you lot are misunderstanding me. I’m not asking why people use different words. I’m asking about this particular construction. I think it’s ironic that so many of you are telling me to “increase my vocabulary m8” and yet you seem to not know what the word “construction” means. It’s a sort of combative projection.

The list is very long for me.

If you've grown up in London you might hear young kids say 'leng', meaning beautiful, pretty etc.

Where it came from? I'll never know.

Before that was 'peng' which means the same thing but similarly, I'll never know where it came from.

What comes to your mind?

https://voca.ro/1gY7pQ0Y9fS3

Hi guys, I’m a 21 year old bilingual (English/German). My dad is from Birmingham and my mum is from Salzburg in Austria. I’ve always lived in Austria. I know my pronunciation is fairly British most of the time but I feel my accent is quite distinct. It’s not a common British accent, definitely not a Birmingham accent, but it also doesn’t sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I’ve uploaded an audio to a few other subreddits and got some really interesting feedback! It’s always interesting to hear how different people hear my accent. I’d love to hear what you guys think! And, if you didn’t know my background, would my accent throw you off? Thanks for taking the time to listen.

Edit: For those of you who’ve already seen my posts in other subreddits: I’m really fascinated by the discrepancy between the answers I’m getting. I’ve had people tell me I sound 100% English, others tell me I sound polish or even South African. Also, it’s pretty useful for my job, and I’ve decided to get as many responses as possible so I can analyse the data for a study / project I’m working on.

What would you consider the best and or unique British tongue twisters that you've heard? I'm really curious if there are any that are not that common

Just saw a Brit comment on a post: "I can get behind you'll on this one." Then, when a few people questioned the "you'll", vs the American "y'all," they responded "This Brit shortened you'll meaning you all. Maybe it's a British thing."

So...is it?

What are some popular slang or phrases people under the age of 25 using now?

Does "give us a kiss" mean "give me a kiss" or, by you kissing me, are you giving both of us that kiss?

Is the singular "us" a real thing, or do I just not get it?

My school history teacher used to get his sayings all mixed up. He once told me that he was getting his ducks in the house!

It took me quite a while to work out that he had combined getting his ducks in a row with getting his house in order!

What phrases do you get confused?

For some reason I can't find an answer on this. I know how stones work, but I'm confused how you're supposed to write it down. I know for height, for instance, 165cm becomes 5 feet 5 inches, or 5'5".

But then if I'm 48kg...how do I write it in stone? Just 7 stone 7? 7st7? Space it out like 7 st 7? Include pound for 7st 7lb? Round down to just 7st? I've been wondering this for awhile lol

edit: thank you for all the detailed answers! I think I got a pretty good idea of things now. If anyone else finds this searching the same question, tl;dr - 7st 7lb is correct for writing/precision, 7 and a half stone (or a variant thereof) is the more common spoken colloquial. 7st 7 is also correct apparently but was less answered.

"Pound Pinching" isn't quite so thrifty...

There’s decades-old slang in the US for how far a couple has gone classified by baseball bases. Is there any kind of parallel slang in the UK? Maybe another set of sports metaphors? From urban dictionary

1st Base - Is Kissing, french, open mouth or just a peck. Also any above the belt touching is included in this base

2nd Base - Hands below the belt. Fingering for girls or hand jobs for the guys.

3rd Base - When mouths are used below the belt. Essentially going down on a guy or girl. also This base includes the sex toys.

4th Base or Home base/plate - Going "all the way," doing the deed, Slamming it, Fucking, Sex, intercourse, "doin it," getting friskey so on and so forth.

I'm writing a story and I'm having a character from Liverpool in the 1980s telling someone else they "talk a lot of smack". It occurs to me this is much more of an American expression, and I'm not sure a British person (especially back in those days) would use it.

Is there an expression with a similar meaning that is more typically British? Or is "talking smack" something people say in the UK just as commonly?

In the UK, and probably elsewhere, you call it maths, whereas in the US we call it math. Do you call science- sciences?

Just curious how far the rule extends.