4 Ways To Swear Like A Brit (In Socially Acceptable Ways)

Swearing is a fun stress reliever and Anglophenia's episode 29 provides us a quick masterclass on how to swear like a Brit. I'm a fan of both American and British English but I have to say that British profanities are vastly more entertaining.

1. Bloody 

If you're a Potterhead or have read/watched the Harry Potter series, you'll remember Harry's best friend Ron Weasley use 'bloody' a lot. As in, "That was bloody brilliant!" and his famous, "Bloody hell!". The notoriety of this swear word  kicked up in the 1750s, and during the Victorian era, the upper-class started replacing it with less profane words like blimey, blasted, bleeding, blinking, blinding, blooming, and blessed. And don't you know that those are the (original) yet rejected names of the 7 dwarves?

2. Bollocks

Bollocks is an Anglo-Saxon word which means testicles. Arnell of Anglophenia notes that it's her favorite swear word, largely because of its versatility, as in:

a.) to express displeasure when something goes wrong:

"I've run out milk! Bollocks!"

b.) to indicate when someone is telling a lie:

"Bollocks! I can see you hiding it behind your back!"

c.) to indicate that something is amazing:

"This milk is amazing. It's the bollocks!"

d.) and the act of telling somebody off when they've done something wrong is called "bollocking":

"My mom gave me a bollocking for drinking all the milk." 

see also: Dog's bollocks

3. Pissed

In an American sense, this word means angry or upset. In the case of British English pissed could mean so much more and is largely related to alcohol:

"to be pissed" means to be drunk

"to be on the piss" means to be out getting drunk

telling someone "to piss off" means they should go away

"to be pissed off" means get angry

"to piss about/around" means to be silly or mess around

"to take the piss out of someone" is to tease or make fun of another person

thus,

"I'm proper (very) pissed off with Paul for going out on the piss with Pablo and Peter getting pissed in the pub and then pissing around past his bedtime. I have to tell him to piss off when he comes in pissed and it had not been possible not to take the piss out of him the next morning."

4. Sod

A sod denotatively means the grass and the part of the soil beneath it held together by the roots. As a British swear word, it means so much more. Like 'bollocks', it's a versatile curse word:

"sod off" means to tell someone to go away:

"Just sod off!"

"sod" simply means a sucky person or a prick:

"That inconsiderate sod nearly revealed the ending of Game of Thrones season 4."

"sodding" can be used to add emphasis to an expression to negative effect:

"Has anybody seen my sodding glasses?!"

"Sod it" is an exclamation of frustration:

"Sod it! Andy took my phone again!"

"Sod all" means hardly anything

"When British people leave tip in the restaurant, it's probably sod all.

Watch the whole episode to learn how to pronounce them!