I'd say "mi duck" and "love" are more common in Nottinghamshire. Which is not a surprise, there is a lot of usage and words left over from the language of the early Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia, which included both areas.

 

When I was stationed in East Anglia while in the Air Force (1971), some friends and I went to look at a car for sale in Ipswich. The guy selling the car said, in a fast cadence, "It's a goo fuh-in mo-ah!" We all looked at each other thinking to ourselves, "What the hell did he just say??" He repeated it, and one of the guys said, "Oh, it's a good fuckin' motor". Course, we didn't know that motor was his term for car and he apparently didn't like pronouncing too many consonants, lol. Anyway, that was my introduction to British English.

 

It’s interesting culturally, because here in the States, in many circles, the word “c**t” has risen far beyond “fuck,” and now has its own designation as the “C-word.” An Irish friend tells me, though, it has much less sting in the UK.

 

I shared an office with a bloke from the midlands for nearly a year.

It is a strange language.

Later I actually went there and spet a weekend in Upton on Trent (at the BHI museum.) I could almost understand them.

Another time I visited Wales and Cornwall. RSP is closer to the Welsh accent, and is what people think of a 'British Accent.' Probably a hidden Welsh agenda. A lot of Actors seem to have a Welsh Background. We also used to host Choirs from these locations.

The other Welsh agenda is to secretly teach Welsh (Cymru) to the rest of the world without them suspecting it.

BTW England has no Counts due to the close rhyme with he C-word. I noticed as well that word seems to have become more used and less offensive in the modern world. (b*gg*r still seems to get the hackles up though.) Most Americans would not know a British insult as many of them sound like compliments to the uninitiated.

 

Some years ago I was doing phone support for a complicated database program. We had a customer in Dublin who would phone regularly with a problem that they'd screwed up up their licence file [*] -- again! So the contact & I talked a lot and got quite friendly. On day I said that I'd been to Ireland a few times for vacation and on business so I knew how they talked. Every second word was based on "fuck". So how come she didn't talk like that on phone? She laughed and after that spoke in normal Irish.

[*] The file was encrypted and specified how many simultaneous users to allow and had a date limit. While investigating their problems I found that if the file existed but was actually empty every user got all rights indefinitely. I mentioned this to our programmer responsible and was told "Oh? Well if they don't know that we're OK!"

 

In Jersey ... It's:

How you doin?

But we don't want an answer. The only valid response:

How YOU doin?

 

My Nana was a proper cockney (born within the sound of the Bow Bells) and her side of the family generally greeted with ‘wotcha’.

As I’m a Yorkshireman, I tend to use/hear, “now then”, “alright?”, “eyup”.

The only rhyming slang I grew up with was “apples and pears”, which makes no sense as it’s longer than just saying stairs. “Berk” was another my auntie often used when we were young. It was years before I realised what it meant.

 

I'm originally from the black country too. My family would more likely say "ow bin ya cock (or ma wench)"

 

Yes, but he is a c**t

 

I visited London in the early 1980’s, and a local and I were walking down the street. He spotted an attractive girl, and said, “Oh Bobby, what a set of Bristols, eh?”

So when I got home, I shared the fun fact that in England, they call boobs, “Bristols.” Why I never knew…

Fast forward 40 years, and I’m treating an English patient (not “the”…), and he’s telling me all about Cockney rhyming slang, about how you find the common word pair that rhymes, and then use the first word to replace the regular word you’re referring to. So I tell him I was in England once, and I only recall the typical words like “boot,” “nappy,” “take-away,” “Bristol’s,” etc.

Then he tells me, “Well you know, Bristols is Cockney rhyming slang.”

And I say, “Really? How so.”

“Well, he said. “Bristol City rhymes with…”

 

It's still pretty offensive to be fair, in public at least.

 

My family used this a lot when i was a kid - never thought to ask what it actually meant!

 

Not in actual Jersey it’s not. The ‘New’ is important!

 

Happiness is a pair of big Bristols....

[/QUOTE]

 

To bring it full circle, my aunties favourite insult “Berk” stems from “Berkeley Hunt”.

 

This now makes a lot more sense... I'm not sure my very religious parents knew the origins of what they were saying!

 

Jasper Carrot, a comedian from Birmingham (England) had a sketch where he was driving in the USA and was pulled over by the cops. He produced his drivers' licence and the cop says "Wow, you have three endorsements. You must be a pretty good driver!".

British "endorsement" should translate to "citation" for the USA.

 

Driving in the UK is best done solo. That way you do not have someone in the left hand seat shouting "Watch out for that wall!"

 

After you posted this, I hit Google to get the meaning. It noted that nowadays, it often refers to an idiot. Years ago…well, not too tough to sort out.

 

What a load of Codswallop!

(I'll take any opportunity to use my favorite British word.)