I'm currently writing some conversational lines for my book, and I've got a few questions I need to ask. Since there are quite a few bros here from the UK, I was wondering if I can get some Londoners to help me with this, particularly in the way of slang. Thanks :D

In particular, I was wondering what are some of the ways people might address a younger female companion, say from a mentor to a student, in a jovial manner. Also, how might one express delight at something? "Smashing"? "Bully"? I apologize in advance if anything here offends, due to my ignorance.

I'm not from London, but I might still be able to help out. Unless Londoners really do speak a super top secret language I'll never learn until I move there.

Cool I was wondering what are some of the ways people might address a younger female companion, say from a mentor to a student, in a jovial manner. Also, how might one express delight at something? "Smashing"? "Bully"?

Even as I'm typing this, I'm going through my Sherlock Holmes books for inspiration too lol.

-edit- Is there a more archaic, English way of cursing or swearing when expressing shock and fear, like the equivalent of "damn it"?

London is way too big and diverse for there to be a standard "London accent." Everyone has their own way of saying things.

The 'standard' London 'dialect' though is Cockney:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NeBfY6U4n8
(watch for the guy with the glasses)

"Smashing" is fairly common. Never, ever heard anyone say: "Bully."

e: more Cockney:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXaJCoigOZ8

e2: just watch the whole movie as a starting point.


e: and one to top it off!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsblDk2h3V4

"Smashing!" is fine, although I'd say it's falling out of fashion nowadays. Still a substantial number of people hold on to it. I've never heard of anyone use "bully" for excitement or anything like that, though.

As for the companion? It depends. "Luv" might be okay, maybe "dear" if he was older. I suppose "darling" could work. There's a few, I'd need to know the exact context to make a proper judgement, though.


To your edit: Maybe "curses" or something along those lines. A really archaic thing would be to damn as a verb, like "this computer which keeps BSODing on me be damned!"

I've lived in London for a year now. Am doing my best not to be a londoner though. Can't stand them.

Addressing a younger female companion depends entirely on the situation. If it were someone that should be treated with respect, either through insane political correctness, or just superiority, I would be jovially referring them by name (anything in the workplace is a minefield if you use anything else). If they were more informally known, then it is entirely character dependent. I might refer to a friend as young lady, skinny little thing, maneater, or frightening creature. depending on how likely they were to hit me. In short - your first question is not about londoners, it's universal.

Your second question shows too much time reading the Dandy, and not enough time over here. It's once again character dependent, but it only a really repressed public schoolboy would use those two suggestions. Popular and common terms are usually just americanisms, I'd say things like "cool", "excellent", "brilliant". If you wanted to make it distinctive that they're from london then perhaps something like "sorted" to mean that something is fixed.

Sorry, I don't quite know what you think a londoner is, other than really rude (they are).

What, you mean you don't go around eating crumpets and saying "Wot, wot" all the time? All my dreams are ruined! D:

Thanks for the replies! I'll respond in a while (watching the YT vid posted by FraterPerdurabo while developing my script). Just wanted to apologize if it offended anyone, the misconception I had that Londoners speak alike.

Well... I do, but I'm not a londoner. They don't cook their crumpets right. They're all weird down here.

When someone asks for Londoner speech I get the image of Cockney and the creative slang. Unfortunately, that is dying and not spoken by too many people under 30, I've never heard it from my contemporaries. As Frater pointed out there is a lot of information about it and if you want to be recognized by non-London audience you should probably use it, they just aren't that common outside Hackney. There are many accents and, depending on the neighbourhood, you will hear words from Caribbean or Indian with a bit of everything in between. There is a huge difference based on origins (be they racial or class) and one can usually tell a person's ethnicity even by talking on the phone.

I do hate to suggest this but I think this might be helpful if you want a more contemporary feel; look-up chav slang (almost depressing to type the words). Chav is a term (some consider it racist (classist?)) to describe working class poor and while this is not specific to London many of the young malchicks wandering its streets will be speaking it. A teacher will never, NEVER, use chav slang but students generally will if they can get away with it. Teachers almost always address their students formally when in school, I've never been addressed informally by one but maybe it's different being a girl. 'My dear' would be the only informal that I can remember hearing.

Is that Del Preston? I heard he once beat a shop owner and his son to death with their own shoes.

That was only because he needed 1000 brown M&Ms, otherwise Ozzy wouldn't go on stage.

Yeah well, what does a shopkeeper need a tiger for anyways?

How should a proper crumpet be prepared, then? I've had a fair few crumpets over here, but I've no clue whether we make them "correctly" on this side of the pond. It's possible my entire crumpet-eating experience has been a sham!

You know if you go s/cr/str/g you get a much more interesting post. :-P