How to Improve Your Cursing and Insults— Learning From the Brits

British people are on a whole ‘nother level of cursing and insults. I nearly shat myself the first time I heard “frothing at the gash.

If he was British, it would be two fingers. Which is their ‘middle finger’ developed to taunt the French, after they cut off French archer’s fingers during war times. Photo by Yaroslav Shuraev on Pexels.

Consider the eliteness of British insults and cursing. To make something hilariously insulting — like a Brit — all you need to do is say “utter” and then pick any random object. “You utter glovebox”. “You utter ham sandwich”. Want to take it to the next level? Add a descriptive word to the random object. “You utter limp pine cone”. “You utter beige muppet”.

Feel like switching it up a bit? Replace “utter” with “bloody” or “proper”. Proper and bloody just seem to act like verbal exclamation points. “You proper tosser”. “You bloody crotch goblin”.

Goddamnit, I fucking love the Brits.

Learn a Few British Slang Words

Their slang is utterly top-notch. The color and zing it adds to their language is hilarious. Here are a few of my favorite words stolen from modern British people:

• Numpty (calling someone kind of a simple idiot but still kind of lovable)
• Minging (pronounced like “ringing”, it means gross, foul)
• Tosser / Wanker (slang for masturbator, tosser is a little more polite)
• Daft (silly/stupid)
• Lost the plot (this is a relatively polite way of saying someone has gone crazy)
• Gutted (this just means devastated, but sounds way better)
• Muppet (idiot/dim-witted)
• Lazy sod (useless idiot)
• Beef curtains (we all know what this is, and yup — it’s British)
• Arsehole (we all know this one too — but I personally feel it isn’t used enough — and is just an elevated way of calling someone an asshole)
• Frothing at the gash (a literal description of the physical arousal of a woman)
• Shag (to fornicate — but just sounds cooler)

If you like those, here are two more. They’re old. Like, medieval old.

• Beardsplitter (a word to call the D, the penis, the old sword in the stone)
• Bedswerver (a word the bard himself, Shakespeare, came up with for people who cheat on their romantic partners)

Cunt

I kept this one separate. Cunt is relatively common in Britain (and Australia). Us North Americans can use this in written form, but if you’re going to say it out loud — practice it first. When it doesn’t casually roll off the tongue, giving it a cheeky appeal, it just sounds, well — wrong. That’s not just from me, ask a British or Aussie friend about what they think about how Americans pronounce it. We just don’t have the same accented swag that seems to be passed hereditarily there.

If I get a positive response to this article I am thinking I should go down under and scratch out one on Aussie cursing. They’ve defo got a few roos loose in the top paddock when it comes to language.