duffing up • Duffing up is the female equivalent of beating up. It is not so violent and usually involves a lot of pushing with the occasional pinch.
dustbins • Things to put your rubbish in. Or probably as you say in America land, refuse. Or is it garbage? Or junk? In England it is dustbin because we have a lot of dust (possibly).
Emily Plankton • Hang on, now that you mention it, I may be getting muddled up between the famous suffragette Emily Whatsit and stuff that fish eat. Was it Emily Pancake then? No, wait a minute, Pankhurst—Emily Pankhurst. What is this anyway, some kind of general knowledge quiz?
fag • Cigarette.
fandango • A fandango is a complicated Spanish dance. So a fandango is a complicated thing. Yes, I know there is no dancing involved. Or Spanish.
footie • Soccer.
form • A form is what we call class at English secondary schools. It is probably a Latin expression. Probably from the Latin “formus ignoramus.”
fringe • Goofy short bit of hair that comes down to your eyebrows. Someone told me that American-type people call them “bangs” but this is so ridiculously strange that it’s not worth thinking about. Some people can look very stylish with a fringe (i.e., me) while others look goofy (Jas). The Beatles started it apparently. One of them had a German girlfriend, and she cut their hair with a pudding bowl and the rest is history.
Froggie and geoggers • Froggie is short for French, geoggers is short for geography. Ditto blodge (biology) and lunck (lunch).
full-frontal snogging • Kissing with all the trimmings, lip to lip, open mouth, tongues…everything. (Apart from dribble, which is never acceptable.)
f.t. • I refer you to the famous “losing it” scale.
minor tizz
complete tizz and to-do
strop
a visit to Stop Central
F.T. (Funny turn)
spazattack
complete ditherspaz
nervy b. (nervous breakdown)
complete nervy b.
ballisiticisimus
gadzooks • An expression of surprise. Like for instance, “Cor, love a duck!” Which doesn’t mean you love ducks or want to marry one. For the swotty knickers amongst you, “gad” probably meant “God” in olde English, and “zooks” of course means…Oh, look, just leave me alone, OK? I’m so vair tired.
games • Sports.
get off with • A romantic term. It means to use your womanly charms to entice a boy into a web of love. Oh OK then—snogging.
gob • Gob is an attractive term for someone’s mouth. For example, if you saw Mark (from up the road who has the biggest mouth known to womankind) you could yell politely, “Good Lord, Mark, don’t open your gob, otherwise people may think you are a basking whale in trousers and throw a mackerel at you” or something else full hilariosity.
goosegog • Gooseberry. I know you are looking all quizzical now. OK. If there are two people and they want to snog and you keep hanging about saying “Do you fancy some chewing gum?” or “Have you seen my interesting new socks?” you are a gooseberry. Or for short a goosegog, i.e., someone who nobody wants around.
gorgey • Gorgeous. Like fabby (fabulous) and marvy (marvelous).
havvies • Haversacks. Life is too shor to fini wor.
horn • When you “have the horn” it’s the same as “having the big red bottom.”
Jammy Dodger • Biscuit with jam in it. Very nutritious(ish).
jimjams • Pajamas. Also pygmies or jammies.
jumper • Pullover. Hey, do you think it is called a jumper because it is made from wool, and sheep jump about? No, neither do I.
Kiwi-a-gogo land • New Zealand. “A-gogo land” can be used to liven up the otherwise really boring names of other countries. America, for instance, is Hamburger-a-gogo land, Mexico is Mariachi-a-gogo land and France is Frogs’-legs-a-gogo land. This is from that very famous joke told every Christmas by the elderly mad (Grandad). Oh very well, I’ll tell you it.
A man goes into a French restaurant and says to the French waiter, “Have you got frogs’ legs?”
The waiters says, “Oui, monsieur.”
And the man says, “Well, hop off and get me a sandwich then.”
This should give you some idea of what our Christmases are like.
knickers • Panties, briefs, things you wear to conceal girlie parts. Boys don’t wear knickers; they wear underpants or boxer shorts. Some of them wear underpants that have a Union Jack or a funny joke on them. So Jas says, but she is, as we are all too aware, mad.
lippy • Oh come on, you know what it is! Lipstick!! Honestly, what are you lot like!
loo • Lavatory. In America they say “rest room,” which is funny, as I never feel like having a rest when I go to the lavatory.
Lord Baden-Powell • You don’t know who Lord Baden-Powell is? Blimey you are, it has to be said, v. v. dense. Lord B-P invented Scouts and camping, and knots and going into the country for no reason. Ergo, Lord B-P was clearly mad as a hen.
P.S. Not content with the camping fiasco, he also invented enormous shorts, which he wore proudly.
lurgy • Is when you feel icky-poo. Please tell me that you know what icky-poo means. Oh good Lord. It means “poorly.” Lurgy is like a bug. An illness bug, Ergo, tummy lurgy = stomach bug.
midget gem • Little sweets made out of hard jelly stuff in different flavors. Jas loves them A LOT. She secretes them about her person, I suspect, often in her panties, so I never like to accept one from her on hygiene and lesbian grounds.
milky pops • A soothing hot milk drink, when you are a little person. (No, not an elf, I mean a child.) Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, when you are a child, people give words endings to make them more cozy. Chocolate is therefore choccy woccy doo dah. Blanket is blankin’. Tooth is tushy peg. Easy is easy peasey lemon squeasey. If grown-ups ever talk like this, do not hesitate to kill them.
naff • Unbearably and embarrassingly out of fashion and nerdy. Naff things are: Parents dancing to “modern” music, blue eyeshadow, blokes who wear socks with sandals, pigtails. You know what I mean.
nervy spaz • Nervous spasm. Nearly the same as a nervy b. (nervous breakdown) or an f.t. (funny turn), only more spectacular on the physical side.
nippy noodles • Instead of saying “Good heavens, it’s quite cold this morning,” you say “Cor—nippy noodles!!” English is an exciting and growing language. It is. Believe me. Just leave it at that. Accept it.
nuddy-pants • Quite literally nude-colored pants, and you know what nude-colored pants are? They are no pants. So if you are in your nuddy-pants you are in your no pants, i.e., you are naked.
nunga-nungas • Basoomas. Girls’ breasty business. Ellen’s brother calls them nunga-nungas because he says that if you get hold a girl’s breast and pull it out and then let it go—it goes nunga-nunga-nunga. As I have said many, many times with great wisdomosity, there is something really wrong with boys.
Pantalitzer • A terrifying Czech-made doll that sadistic parents (my vati) buy for their children, presumably to teach them early on about the horror of life. Essentially the Pantalitzer doll has a weird plastic face with a horrible fixed smile. The rest of Pantalitzer is a sort of cloth bag with hard plastic hands on each side like steel forks.
I don’t know if I have mentioned this before, but I am not reassured that Eastern Europeans really know how to have a laugh.
Pizza-a-gogo land • Masimoland. Land of wine, sun, olives and vair vair groovy Luuurve Gods. Italy. (The only bad point about Pizza-a-gogo land is their football players are so vain that if it rains, they all run off the pitch so that their hair doesn’t get ruined. See also Chelsea players.)
plight my troth • Give your word luuurve-wise. Another way of saying you are my one and only one. So if you are “untrothed” you can display red bottomosity ad hoc and willy nilly.
prat • A prat is a gormless oik. You make a prat of yourself by mistakenly putting both legs do
wn one knicker leg or by playing air guitar at pop concerts.
red bottomosity • Having the big red bottom. This is vair vair interesting via-à-vis nature. When a lady baboon is “in the mood” for luuurve, she displays her big red bottom to the male baboon. (Apparently he wouldn’t have a clue otherwise, but that is boys for you!!) Anyway, if you hear the call of the Horn you are said to be displaying red bottomosity.
Rolf Harris • An Australian “entertainer” (not). Rolf has a huge beard and glasses. He plays a didgeridoo, which says everything in my book. He sadly has had a number of hit records, which means he is never off TV and will not go back to Australia. (His “records” are called “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport,” etc….)
snogging • Kissing.
The Sound of Music • Oh are we never to be free? The Sound of Music was a film about some bint, Julie Andrews, skipping around in the Alps and singing about goats. Many many famous and annoying songs come from this film, including, “The Hills Are Alive with the Sounds of PANTS,” “You Are Sixteen Going on PANTS,” and, of course, the one about the national flower of Austria, “IdlePANTS.”
spangleferkel • A kind of German sausage. I know. You couldn’t make it up, could you? The German language is full of this kind thing, like lederhosen and so on. And Goosegot.
spot • Officially a blocked pore that gets all red and inflamed and sometimes has a white top on it. In reality something you get every time you need to look your best. You never get spots in concealed places—they are always on your nose or chin or on a sticky-out bit. Americans call them “zits” and I hope against hope this has nothing to do with the noise they make when you pop them.
swot • A person who has no life and as a substitute has to read books and learn things for school. Also anyone who does their homework on time.
tart • A girl who is a bit on the common side. This is a tricky one, actually, because if I wear a very short skirt I am cool and sexy, However, if Jackie Bummer wears a short skirt it is a) a crime against humanity and b) tarty.
tatty bye • Now this is interesting, so gather round and get your ears on, as Yogi Bear used to say. (Don’t start asking me who Yogi Bear is, otherwise we’ll be here all day and night.) “Tatty” is another word for “potato” in olde English, so Mrs. Billy Shakespeare would say, “Shall we have tatties and pheasant for tea, Billy?” So when you are saying good-bye, English people say tatty bye, and it quite literally means “good-bye potato.”
titches • A titch is a small person. Titches is the plural of titch.
tosser • A special kind of prat. The other way of putting this is “wanker” or “monkey spanker.”
vino tinto • Now this is your actual Pizza-a-gogo talk. It quite literally means “tinted wine.” In this case the wine is tinted red.
waz • Another expression for piddly diddly department. Possibly named after the sound the piddly diddly makes as it comes out of the trouser area. I don’t know, to be frank. Only boys say it. And who knows why boys say anything? The whole thing is a mystery.
wazzarium • A place where you go to have a waz. P.S. You will not be finding me in there.
wet • A drippy, useless, nerdy idiot. Linday.
whelk boy • A whelk is a horrible shellfish thing that only the truly mad eat. Slimy and mucuslike. Whelk boy is a boy who kisses like a whelk, i.e., a slimy mucus kisser. Erlack a pongoes.
About the Author
LOUISE RENNISON is the bestselling and award-winning author of the angst-filled Confessions of Georgia Nicolson. Louise lives in Brighton, the San Francisco of England (apart from the sun, Americans, the Golden Gate Bridge, and earthquakes).
You can visit Georgia online at www.georgianicolson.com, where you’ll find a complete glossary of Georgia-isms, video clips in which Louise reveals her personal secrets, and more!
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
confessions of GEORGIA NICOLSON
ANGUS, THONGS AND FULL-FRONTAL SNOGGING
ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, I’M NOW THE GIRLFRIEND OF A SEX GOD
KNOCKED OUT BY MY NUNGA-NUNGAS
DANCING IN MY NUDDY-PANTS
AWAY LAUGHING ON A FAST CAMEL
THEN HE ATE MY BOY ENTRANCERS
STARTLED BY HIS FURRY SHORTS
LOVE IS A MANY TROUSERED THING
STOP IN THE NAME OF PANTS
Credits
Cover art © 2007 by Howard Huang
Cover design by Sasha Illingworth
Copyright
LOVE IS A MANY TROUSERED THING. Copyright © 2007 by Louise Rennison. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition JUNE 2008 ISBN: 9780061975387
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Note to the dim (and I mean this in a loving way)—the Viking disco inferno dance goes stamp, stamp to the left, left leg kick, kick, arm up, stab, stab to the left, and HOOOOOOORN!
Love Is a Many Trousered Thing Page 15
