10 British InsultsThat Begin with ‘B’

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We may speak English, but not really.  In the United Kingdom, English is spoken with a flair for the finely tuned insult, like the following 10 “b” words:

barmpot: n clumsy idiot. As with a lot of the Brits’ less-than-complimentary words, it isn’t really offensive — it’s used more in goading fun than anything else. Has a derivation similar to that of “barmy.”

barmy: adj idiotic. You might describe your father’s plan to pioneer the first civilian moon landing using nothing but stuff he’d collected from a junkyard as “barmy.” Well, unless the junkyard he had in mind was out the back of Cape Kennedy and he had funding from China. It may or may not derive from the fact that there was once a psychiatric hospital in a place called Barming, near Maidstone in Kent, England. It may equally easily come from an Old English word for yeast, “barm,” intended to imply that the brain is fermenting. As these competing etymologies seem equally plausible, it seems only sensible to settle the matter in an old-fashioned fistfight.

berk: n idiot. Yes, yes, another friendly U.K. word for moron; this one implies a degree of clumsiness: Look, you berk, I said to bend it, not bust it. The word originally derives from the rhyming slang “Berkeley Hunt” (or “Berkshire Hunt”), which rhymes with — well, “punt,” among other words.

Billy no-mates: n person with no friends: Everyone else turned up half an hour late so I was sitting there like Billy no-mates for ages.

bint: n woman, in the loosest sense of the word. One step short of a prostitute, a bint is a bird with less class, less selectivity, more makeup and even more skin. Blokes don’t talk to bints unless they’ve had at least eight pints of beer, which is why bints turn up in free-for-students nightclubs at 2:45 a.m. with their faked student ID and dance around their Moschino rucksacks. The word derives from the Arabic for “woman.” Well, I say “derives from” – it is the Arabic for “woman.”

blighter: adj guy (or, rather, a more refined, more upper-class version thereof). Usually used in a slightly critical tone: Just wait until I get my hands on the blighter who steals my newspaper every morning.

bloody: adj 1 damned. An exclamation of surprise, shock or anger, it’s one of the great multi-purpose British swear words. Best known as part of the phrase “Bloody hell!” but can also be used in the middle of sentences for emphasis in a similar way to “fucking”: And then he had the cheek to call me a bloody liar! or even with particular audacity in the middle of words: Who does she think she is, Cinde-bloody-rella? Etymology-wise, it’s possible that “bloody” has in fact nothing to do with blood and actually a contraction of the Christian phrase “by Our Lady.” 2. bloody-minded obstinate; determined: If he wasn’t going to be so bloody-minded about it we’d have come to a deal ages ago.

blooming: adj darned. An extremely innocuous expletive — could be seen as a reduced-strength version of “bloody.” Rather antiquated nowadays.

bollocks: 1 n testicles. The word is in pretty common use in the U.K. and works well as a general “surprise” expletive in a similar way to “bugger.” the dog’s bollocks something particularly good (yes, good): See that car — it’s the dog’s bollocks, so it is. This in turn gives way to copy-cat phrases such as “the pooch’s privates” or “the mutt’s nuts,” which all generally mean the same thing. bollocking a big telling-off 2 rubbish; nonsense: Well, that’s a load of bollocks. Some additional U.S./U.K. confusion is added by the fact that the words “bollix” and “bollixed” are sometimes used in the U.S. to describe something thrown into confusion or destroyed.

bugger: 1 n jerk. Or substitute any other inoffensive insult (“git” works just as well) 2 v sodomise 3 -off a friendlier alternative to “fuck off.” 4 interj “rats.” Stand-alone expletive usable in a similar way as “bollocks”: Oh, bugger!

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About Post Author

Devon Lee Cane

I'm a man with a keen interest in the world, and writing for MadMike'sAmerica allows me to express those interests.
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Admin
11 years ago

Good one Devon. Having been born there, and attended school in London, I remember some of these.

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