Word of the day: prat

The word of the day is prat:

1. the buttocks.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/prat)

"The last phrase was turned in that special voice which people use for humorous self-parody, in the mistaken hope that it will make them sound less like a prat."

 - Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

Phrase of the day: bunch of fives

The phrase of the day is bunch of fives:

uk old-fashioned slang

​

If you give someone a bunch of fives, you hit them hard with your hand closed.

(http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/a-bunch-of-fives)

"Or a little car runs into the back of yours and you rush out to show a bunch of fives to the driver who, it becomes apparent as he goes on unfolding more body like some horrible conjuring trick, must have been sitting on the back seat."

 - Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

Word of the day: bonce

The word of the day is bonce:

 British Slang.

1. head; skull.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bonce)

"I mean, when your bonce goes, I ask you, what is the sense of carrying on?"

 - Martin Amis, "Oktober", 7 December 2015 The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/07/oktober)

word of the day: sarny

The word of the day is sarny:

English slang for a sandwich. (Urban Dictionary)


"Harga looked around the steamy cafe.  No one was watching him.  He was going to get to the bottom of this.  He rapped on the hatch again.
"'Alligator sandwich,' he said.  'And make it sna-'
"The hatch shot up.  After a few seconds to pluck up enough courage, Harga peered under the top slice of the long sarny in front of him.  He wasn't saying that it was alligator, and he wasn't saying it wasn't."

 - Terry Pratchett, Mort (1987)

Words of the day: pants, bumptious, and berk

The words of the day are pants, bumptious, and berk:

pants.  Shortened < pantaloons, plural of pantaloon n.

orig. U.S. 

4. Brit. slang. Rubbish; nonsense. Freq. in pile (also load) of pants .The use of the noun in this sense is often difficult to distinguish from a predicative adjectival use. (OED)

bumptious.  A humorous formation, suggested perhaps by bump n.¹ or bump v.¹, and words in -tious, like fractious. (Not in Craig 1847, nor in any earlier Dict.)

Offensively self-conceited; self-assertive. (colloq. and undignified.) (OED)

berk.  Abbrev. of Berkeley (or Berkshire) Hunt, rhyming slang for [an obscenity].

slang.

A fool. (OED)

"The Times (also Murdoch-owned) published a profile of Bryant titled 'BLAIR’S ATTACK POODLE SAYS PANTS TO THE LOT OF YOU,' which included a blind quote calling Bryant a 'bumptious little berk.'"

 - Lauren Collins, "Early birds", 25 July 2011 The New Yorker


Firstly, I'm not convinced that the use of the word pants here is quite the same as in the dictionary.  Secondly, given berk's etymology, I wonder if it doesn't have a bit more bite and mysogyny to it than merely "fool".

Word of the day: roger

The word of the day is roger:

coarse slang (chiefly Brit.).

 trans. Usually of a man: to have sexual intercourse with (a person, esp. a woman). Also intr. (OED)

"Over the years, the tabloids continued to give Bryant hell: 'VOTERS MUST GIVE CHRIS BRYANT A RHONDDA ROGERING,' read a typical headline in Murdoch’s Sun."

 - Lauren Collins, "Early birds", 25 July 2011 The New Yorker