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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2679 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 26, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Some examples that might be helpful.

  • "Bender" can be used as a derogatory term for a gay man.
  • "Bugger" can used as a verb meaning "to sodomize" (I don't know if this word has an innocent meaning in the US).
  • "Pants" refers to boxers and briefs, not trousers.
  • "Pissed" means drunk, rather than angry.
  • "To pull" means to get a girl to come home with you e.g. "I managed to pull at the pub last night."
  • "To shag" means to have sex with (I assume a lot of Yanks are familiar with this owing to Austin Powers).
  • "Slag" means a promiscuous woman.
  • "Spunk" means ejaculate (n.).

Once, a British girlfriend relayed to me an episode in which an American friend (during normal girly sleepover shenanigans with cuddling and little personal space) commented to her something like "your pants smell nice".

(I thought it was a bit weird even with the American meaning.)

Yeah, either interpretation sounds weird.

"Spunk" means ejaculate.

I remember it being a minor plot point in Money by Martin Amis, where the protagonist has to break it to a certain Spunk Davis that he'll have to pick a different stage name if he wants to make it in the UK.

Whereas the comic book artist/writer Randy Queen has joked he can never visit England.

Well, he can now.

I can't help thinking of a recent Ladbible Stories video I watched where they interviewed a British porn director named Dick Bush. That's not a stage name. His parents Christened him Richard Bush and nominative determinism took care of the rest.

Most Americans would be familiar with that use of ‘bugger’, although it sounds like an old person, or ‘to pull’ in that sense. Slag sounds like a British insult for a loose woman, but I didn’t already know it, and I’ve definitely heard ‘spunk’ used as a noun for the same term in American English, but not a verb.

Spunk is a noun not a verb. In the words of a great man:

“You’ve got spunk and balls… and I like that in a woman.”

My impression is that even in the US, 'spunk' to mean 'spirit' or' daring' is in the decline, probably because of the spread of 'spunk' in the obscene sense?

From Australia I am accustomed to the verb 'bugger' as a pretty light swear. I might say, "oh, bugger me" or "bugger this" in public and it's about the same level as 'crap'. 'Bugger' is not as rude as the F word, for instance, as you can probably tell from the fact that I do not hesitate to write 'bugger' but I do hesitate to write the F word.

That usage of "bugger" - basically as a milder version of the nonsexual use of "fuck" also exists in BrE. When turned into a noun, it becomes "buggeration".* "Bugger off" means "go away", with the implication that the person you are telling to bugger off is annoying but not necessarily hostile - you could tell a friend trying to strike up a conversation while you are busy to bugger off but not to fuck off.

* "Bugger" as a noun is an extremely severe homophobic slur unless it is obvious from the context that you are talking about Ender's Game. @gattsuru below is correct to point out that "silly bugger" is another exception.

I think on my ranking of swear words, "bugger off" is harsher than "get stuffed", but less harsh than "piss off". I could say "go bugger yourself" or something to make it more intense, but that still feels fairly 'light' to me.

It's hard to imagine 'bugger' being very offensive, at least to me, because it's such a funny word? Aurally, it sounds a bit silly or amusing. You cannot say 'bugger' with the same harshness or violence as most of the four-letter words.

"Nigger" isn't harsh because of the sound or the meaning, it is harsh because of the history. "Bugger" used to refer to male homosexuality (which is not the primary meaning in modern British English) has the same issue.

Oh "spunk" would still primarily be used as a noun in the UK too. I was using "ejaculate" as a noun, not a verb.

“Snape!” nutted Slughorn, who looked the most shaken, pale and sweating.

I’ve heard over there “jacked up” means things are really good. Over here “jacked up” means things are really bad. Only in some contexts does “jacked” mean things are good in the US.

Supposedly bugger's supposed to be just 'annoying person', and you'll hear 'silly bugger' in some circumstances, but I think that was a corruption from Gordon Ramsay and Terry Pratchett (and Father Ted, maybe?). It's still pretty low-stakes as an insult even among people that know the original context, though.

Under similar metrics, my impression's that 'arse' is a lot lighter-stakes than the UK take, though it's still not very harsh even in the UK. Same for 'bloody' as a prefix, which I still don't get.

From the other direction, in America, "cunt" is considered rude enough that I'll avoid it in explicit pornographic contexts (though not all Americans will), and could be a firing offense on the first use. Made a work trip to Australia very awkward.

"Cunt" would be at least a write-up in a white-collar workplace in the UK, and probably a firing offence for someone without unfair dismissal protection*. The Australian usage is Australian-only. (There was a survey about what words were unacceptable on British TV even after the watershed, and "cunt", "nigger" and "Paki" were in a class of their own for offensiveness, well above "fuck")

The difference between the US and UK usage of "cunt" is that in the US the primary meaning is as a misogynistic slur (so the cuntiest cunt in America is Hilary Clinton) whereas the primary usage in the UK is as an generic slur for obnoxious and/or unpopular people (so the cuntiest cunt in the UK is Boris Johnson).

* Under British employment law, once you have been in post for two years you can't be fired for a single offence unless it meets the legal bar for "gross misconduct". Calling a male cow-orker a cunt would be misconduct, but would only be gross misconduct if your workplace had a written policy saying that foul language was gross misconduct.

Made a work trip to Australia very awkward.

They also use it very freely in Scotland.

In my experience it probably depends on the workplace and culture? I'm Australian born and bred and have a white collar full time job here, and I not only never hear, but would never say the C word.

Never forget what woke took from you.

I think this was my polite upper-middle-class family and upbringing, actually, and I do not regret it.

Same for 'bloody' as a prefix, which I still don't get.

"Bloody" is generally just used as a generic intensifier. I have a very vivid childhood memory of listening to a newsreader talking about Bloody Sunday on the radio and feeling baffled as to why she was suddenly cursing mid-sentence.

‘Bloody’ is supposedly the descendent of a minced oath for ‘by Our Lady’. I don’t know if it’s true or not.

A 1909 dictionary of Victorian slang agrees, "by our Lord" (blood) "by our Lady (bloody), including a mention of a "blady hell" having been found in 18th century literature.

Of course, it also includes "birdofreedomsaurin" as a legitimate word, so...

Birdofreedomsaurin (Amer.). Birdof- freedom soaring. A jocular mode of describing the altitude of the American eagle. Used mildly in England to deprecate any chance American extreme expression of patriotism.

”I think that Prince Louis Napoleon was over-dressed. I know that in his green or purple stock (I forget which) he wore an immense breastpin representing an eagle in diamonds, not the eagle with displayed wings, that is, the American ' birdofreedomsaurin ' — but an aquiline presentment with the wings closed — the eagle of Imperial sway.”

That’s very funny. I guess it’s a play on the dinosaurs being named around this time, like stegosaurus?

The generally proposed etymology is that it derives from a now defunct curse “God’s blood!” which was shortened over time to “‘sblood!” and then became used as an intensifier.

I understand this to be a folk etymology.

Similar minced oaths do exist - my mother was very fond of "strewth!" while I was growing up, a mincing of "God's truth!" - but I believe 'bloody' predates any plausible minced origin.

Sounds plausible.

I can easily say "Bug-her"

"I don't want to bugher too much, she's really getting stretched thin."

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