Multicultural Slang (in English) and Meanings

[PennameWombat]

Double bagger - someone so ugly you put a bag on your own head in case their's splits
We hate panties in the UK, we call them knickers

’Panties’ is a word that confuses me. Not that I dislike the word, but I am a native speaker of American English. Americans use the word. In American English, it’s not controversial, it’s not weird, it’s not strange, it’s not annoying. I have zero personal experience with any American woman I’ve ever known finding the word anything but normal.

While I live in Oz and have broad understanding of multiple dialects of English, when I set a story in America, with American characters, and it’s appropriate, I might well use “panties” in dialogue. Period. I’ve also used ‘knickers’ in some SF&F stories, where the history wasn’t so clear. This is a long-winded way of saying I do not understand the issue with ‘panties.’ If it means you’d immediately stop reading a story and one-star it just because of that word, that REALLY confuses me.

There's a wealth of expressions for surprise in the UK - 'I'll go to the foot of our stairs, shut the fridge door, hit me backspace, pop-up tent' but they depend on context and how they're spoken.
Death and dying is a popular source of platitude - carped it, pegged it, turned up his toes, kicked the bucket, snuffed it, checked out ( though that's also a drug-related one ).
I've heard 'smashed' for sex but it sounds horrible - same as 'I slayed her' or come to that 'I fucked her brains out' that would be suitable for a zombie film I suppose.

Run down the curtain and joined the bleeding choir invisible[1].

In a city in which I used to live, one area was referred to as ‘Slabtown.’ Why? Because, in the ‘old days,’ wandering through that section of town meant you’d very possibly return from it ”on a slab.” (Dead.)

As to ”I fucked her/his brains out,” (or, “she/he fucked my brains out”) that’s another American phrase not at all unfamiliar to me that would be used after a, shall we say, raucous and wild night of the rumpy pumpy. While limited in people likely to use it (e.g., university students or other young people), it‘s not unusual to me.

[1] And everything else in the “Dead Parrot Sketch.”

 

[Kumquatqueen]

’Panties’ is a word that confuses me. Not that I dislike the word, but I am a native speaker of American English. Americans use the word. In American English, it’s not controversial, it’s not weird, it’s not strange, it’s not annoying. I have zero personal experience with any American woman I’ve ever known finding the word anything but normal.
...This is a long-winded way of saying I do not understand the issue with ‘panties.’ If it means you’d immediately stop reading a story and one-star it just because of that word, that REALLY confuses me.

As far as I know, Americans don't have a problem with the word - it's what they've grown up with and any associations will be with women's asses.

But to a Brit, it's unbearably twee, along the lines of the kind of American who goes to the 'little girls room'. The only associations are with pantyliners (is there a more unsexy word?), the word pantyhose which we're familiar with but let's face it, unless you're a particular kind of fetishist, the pant part is inherently unsexy, and the only times Brits might use the word, to describe frilly overpants which go over a nappy (diaper) under a toddler girl's dress. Again, for most people, not a concept they want anywhere near sex in their minds.

It's just nails-down-a-blackboard type excruciating. I'm not saying it's rational, that's just how it is. I usually stick with pants (which means underpants of any sort - some regions use pants to mean trousers too, but if someone wants to get into your pants, then the exact layer isn't that important!). Knickers are women's underpants which may be 'big knickers' or lacy wisps, some areas they may include men's underpants. I tend to use briefs, pants, thong, or just refer to a cotton or lacy piece of fabric or cloth or layer.

Someone recently told me that those stretchy wrinkled shorts baseball players wear are called knickers, which amused me. I suspect you had to be a hormonal teenager around lads in such clothes in order to find them attractive.

 

[Voboy]

My wife, an American, dislikes the word "panties." She claims a lot of her friends do, too. So a lot of my early stories just use "underwear," which is what they call it too.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

My wife, an American, dislikes the word "panties." She claims a lot of her friends do, too. So a lot of my early stories just use "underwear," which is what they call it too.

I've noticed that, which was confusing to me the first few times I saw sentences like "He took my bra off and I was left in nothing but my underwear" and was.left thinking 'no, love, you *were* in nothing but your underwear' - but after half a dozen times I realised that authors are clearly using 'underwear' as a synonym for 'underpants'. I imagine a new word has been coined for underwear - I suppose lingerie works.

 

[BritStories]

Yep, 'underwear' would definitely encompass bra and knickers/thongs/etc...as it's the items you wear under your outer clothes.

 

[stickygirl]

’Panties’ is a word that confuses me. Not that I dislike the word, but I am a native speaker of American English. Americans use the word. In American English, it’s not controversial, it’s not weird, it’s not strange, it’s not annoying. I have zero personal experience with any American woman I’ve ever known finding the word anything but normal.

While I live in Oz and have broad understanding of multiple dialects of English, when I set a story in America, with American characters, and it’s appropriate, I might well use “panties” in dialogue. Period. I’ve also used ‘knickers’ in some SF&F stories, where the history wasn’t so clear. This is a long-winded way of saying I do not understand the issue with ‘panties.’ If it means you’d immediately stop reading a story and one-star it just because of that word, that REALLY confuses me.

Run down the curtain and joined the bleeding choir invisible[1].

In a city in which I used to live, one area was referred to as ‘Slabtown.’ Why? Because, in the ‘old days,’ wandering through that section of town meant you’d very possibly return from it ”on a slab.” (Dead.)

As to ”I fucked her/his brains out,” (or, “she/he fucked my brains out”) that’s another American phrase not at all unfamiliar to me that would be used after a, shall we say, raucous and wild night of the rumpy pumpy. While limited in people likely to use it (e.g., university students or other young people), it‘s not unusual to me.

[1] And everything else in the “Dead Parrot Sketch.”

I think it's the association with panty-liners for incontinence or sanitary pads and somehow with old ladies with structural support underwear!
My city uses some local Yorkshire ones like loppy for filthy dirty, but also grown men call each other love. Chuddy is chewing gum, then there's the ubiquitous 'ey up' for 'reyt' or 'hello and how are my good man? '. People will talk about their working hours as while, so 'I'm on nine while five' this week. There's bacon butties but that's more English. Other words are mainly dialect than unique words but because I work in the university community, we don't hear much local stuff unless we're out on the pull int town like.

 

[oggbashan]

I think it's the association with panty-liners for incontinence or sanitary pads and somehow with old ladies with structural support underwear!
My city uses some local Yorkshire ones like loppy for filthy dirty, but also grown men call each other love. Chuddy is chewing gum, then there's the ubiquitous 'ey up' for 'reyt' or 'hello and how are my good man? '. People will talk about their working hours as while, so 'I'm on nine while five' this week. There's bacon butties but that's more English. Other words are mainly dialect than unique words but because I work in the university community, we don't hear much local stuff unless we're out on the pull int town like.

I often go to Canterbury but rarely hear any Kentish dialect. It has three Universities (four if you count the very small Japanese one) and because University students tend to travel away from their home areas they use standard English, not their home dialect.

My wife lived in a village in NW Kent. We set up home in a village in Mid-Kent. In both we heard, understood, and used the local dialect. Not any more. My town is full of DFLs (Down From Londoners) and Suff Lunnon is heard more often than Kentish. The youngsters use Estuary English.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Thirty years ago I acquired a London accent for self-preservation reasons and was always assumed to be from the other end of London from the one I was standing in. Now, I don't think many people would notice many different regional accents in London - class, ethnic influences, and a south/east distinct accent still, but little beyond that. Hard to detect much difference in Kent nowadays, too. The old Medway/Kentish Man accent is now basically Estuary, and Men of Kent (from the east of the river Medway) are just middle-class commuter voices like any of the southeast.

Another vocab one - apparently Americans find it funny that we call cream in an aerosol can 'squirty cream'.

 

[Smuttyandfun]

Yeah, "squirty cream" doesn't sound like something you'd get out of an aerosol can.