POSH ENGLISH: Old-fashioned British English Expressions

Hi, everyone. In this lesson we're going to look at posh words and posh expressions from

the good old days when... When Britain ruled the world - well, a quarter of the world - and

there was a British Empire, and all this language comes from those times. It's old-fashioned

now, people don't use it, but if you like old literature, if you like films that are

set in older times, and you like the idea of the posh, proper British character, then

this is the language that is associated with those times. So, let's start with "salutations".

This is a fancy way of saying... Ways of saying "hello" or saying "goodbye". If a posh person...

If you're meeting a posh person, they don't say, "How are you?" They say, "How do you

do?" And the answer is not, "I'm fine", the answer is, "How do you do?" "How do you do?

How do you do?"

Next when you're saying "goodbye", you say, "Toodlepip, toodlepip, toodles", or you say,

"Cheerio, cheerio, cheerio now, I've got to go." "Cheerio" comes from... When we're having

a drink and we say, "Cheers, cheers", people used to say back in the past, "Cheerio", but

then it became... Then it came to mean just "goodbye". So, "Cheerio".

Now let's look at posh words to do with people. Now, in the Cockney East End, in the old Cockney

East End, which don't really exist anymore, they say "fella". "What a nice fella" means

a nice man, but the posh way of saying "fella" is "fellow". "Oh, he's a jolly good fellow"

means a good man, a fellow. "Old chap", "What's that old chap? Hey, old chap, what have you

got there?" "Chap" means man, can... Means more young man, but it could... It could extend

up to middle age, that kind of thing. "Old chum", "Who? Who? You're my old chum. I haven't

seen you since Oxford. How are you doing, old chum, old friend?" "My dear", "My dear,

you look absolutely exquisite in your pearls." You say "my dear" if... It's a term of endearment

to show that you're close... You're close to someone. Perhaps... Perhaps it could be

your wife, it could be... Could be your sister, even, my dear, but you... It's a term of address

that you use to women that you're close to, but men use to women, not women use to each

other. And "darling". "Darling" would be the term of endearment that a husband would use

to his wife. "Darling, my darling, I can't live without you. My darling, we must marry

tomorrow, my darling." Okay, so in case you didn't know, posh people do swear. Here are

the swear words from the old times. "Oh, bugger. I've dropped my pen." I'm not going to say

what it means, so moving on from that. "Crumbs. Crumbs. Oh, crumbs. I can't believe this.

I haven't got crumbs all over my face. I'm just slightly embarrassed. Crumbs. I can't

believe what's happened." And "fiddle sticks" is... I think it's when people don't want

to say the word that begins with F, they say "Oh, fiddle sticks" instead. So it's all swearing

- "Oh, bugger" is actually a swear word, whereas these ones are more... A little bit more polite

language.

Moving on, from those good old British Empire days, and still now which is true, actually,

the posher somebody is, the more enthusiastic about life they are. Maybe there's a reason

for that, I don't know, but a way of saying this is that they use emphatic adjectives.

When you're emphatic about something, it means you feel it strongly, so the language is more

extra you could say when they describe things. So, a posh person, instead of saying... Well,

they could say "excellent", you could say "something is excellent", but they might say

"What a spiffing idea. Absolutely spiffing". "Spiffing" means "excellent". "Stupendous",

"Oh my word, that gâteau is stupendous" means very big, huge. Then perhaps you start eating

it and you say "Oh, what a ghastly gâteau. Ghastly. Oh, absolutely ghastly. I don't like

this at all." It means it tastes very bad. "Frightful". "Frightful" when you say when

something is scary to you or when you don't like it. So you could say "What a frightful

young man. Go away, you're not having my purse. What a frightful young man." Now we've got

"glorious", perhaps it's a... "Oh, what a glorious day to play some tennis. Beautiful

day". "Marvellous" and "splendid" mean the same kind of thing, so good like this. You

could say "It's a marvellous day for playing croquet. Absolutely marvellous." If you don't

know what croquet is, it's an old-fashioned game with a... That you play with a stick

and some balls. And when you play that game, it's splendid. It's a splendid game to play.

So let's look now at exclamations. This... These are all phrases that don't mean that

much in terms of the language; it's the context that you use them in. So let's say... Let's

use an example of Jeeves. Jeeves is a very... It's a... It's a name that a posh butler

might have... Might have, and a butler is someone who works for a royal or a very upper-class

family and irons their newspapers and things like that. So you could say "Upon my word,

Jeeves is on the bridge!" if you were really surprised to see the butler Jeeves on the

bridge. Don't know what he's doing there; I can't believe it. "Upon my word, Jeeves

is on the bridge. He should be ironing my newspapers right now." Or you could say "Well,

I never. Jeeves is on the bridge." That's when you're surprised he's there. "Well,

I never. Jeeves is on the bridge. He told me he'd have all my newspapers ironed for

me by now. I'm waiting for him. Well, I never. I can't believe this." Or perhaps Jeeves is

not having a good time in his job, he's a bit stressed, and he's... He's going to jump

off the bridge because he's been ironing too many newspapers, you would say "God forbid.

Jeeves is on the bridge. He might jump. God forbid." You don't want it to happen. God

forbid something terrible might happen here. Or we could say, perhaps, "Oh, what fun. Jeeves

is on the bridge with the croquet. Let's go." If I say "Oh, what fun", it's something exciting

and unexpected. So, you wouldn't expect Jeeves to be playing croquet on the bridge, but now

you see it. "Let's all go and play with Jeeves. Let's go play croquet." And you could say

"Chin-chin". "Chin-chin" is when you... When you... Before you drink. "Chin-chin. Chin-chin,

everyone. Let's... Let's drink some Pimm's."

Moving on here, we've got "golly" and "gosh". They mean almost the same thing. It's a show

surprise. "Golly, you've got a bit fat, haven't you?" Well, that would be a bit rude if you

said that to someone, but you never know. Posh people can be quite direct. "Gosh, what

a fat little child he is." Surprised. And "hear, hear" is something that they say in

the British Parliament when they're all debating, when they can be bothered to show up there

because there's not a lot of things they need to debate these days. But when they agree

with something in the Parliament, all those big, fat old men shout out, "Hear, hear!"

or "Hear him!" That's what they like to say there in the Parliament. They like to say

it as loud as they can. "Hear, hear!" And that means that they show their support and

they agree.

So, now we've finished the lesson, you can go and do the quiz. I'll see you again soon.

Toodle-yo, toodle-pip. Bye.