Have you ever used a word or phrase that you thought everyone knew but they didn't?

[CaramelJones]

Prompted by a discussion with a friend. When we first met she kept saying mardy and I had no idea what she meant.

Has anyone experienced similar with a regional word or a term that only your family use? It's making me wonder which regional words I might be using without thinking of it.

I was born abroad, but English is my 1st language. Despite this, the UK has many words and phrases I'd never heard prior to moving here:

Willy- assumed the person was naming their penis this 😳
Poorly- I thought they had no money
Pants- are actually trousers here, not under pants

Golly or bare golly for a newly hatched bird also used when kids just out of the bath, oh he’s a bare golly. Spell for splinter. Nithered meaning you are really cold.
my husband thinks I just make words up

Maiden for clothes horse
Ginnel for alleyway between houses
Barm for a bread bap/bun
Someone being behind the door meaning sort of quiet and unconfident

Some of these are dated and some are regional and some are both!

Stingers for (stinging) nettles is not only used in Bristol

DH is from Dorset and I'm from Devon. It's a longstanding argument over whether to say "where's it at?" (Dorset) or the correct version (😂) "where's it to?" (Devon).

Has anyone else used Back for kitchen work top / counter ?

South Yorks

In india we use prepone to mean bring something forward, eg the meeting was preponed from Thursday to wednesday. As in the opposite of postpone. I've used it for decades and only recently realised that it doesn't exist in British English and means nothing here. Apparently it doesn't make sense but it's such a useful term I really miss it.

Mardy!
I had no idea it was an East Midlands thing until I moved down south!

One eyed completely forgotten about until somebody said it the other week. ‘Come and let me have a munch of ya,’ said of a cute puppy in this case.

They don't?!

Probably, but hearing it as a child I always had the vague feeling an apeth must be some kind of hairy animal (thinking like ape)!

Forward roll = bully head and definitely not a roly poly - that's when you roll sideways down a grassy bank.

Clod hopper - still say this to the children if there noisy going upstairs.

Chewing gum = chong

Mardy too although the full and less polite version was always mard arse

Forward roll and roly poly are same thing here!

And .... Proper Job!

What would you call lying at the top of a grassy hill and rolling down it then?

"Five and twenty to/past" when describing time rather than "twenty five to/past". It's Black Country, old (most Black Country is) I believe it's used further North too, but have had strange, strange looks when using it in other parts of the UK.

They get used to us though

I use that terminology too

Cheeselog. Berkshire term to mean woodlouse.

I hadn’t realised it was regional until telling my husband there were lots of cheeselogs coming into the house! He looked at me so confused!

Rolling.

@Firecarrier

Yes dgm used that expression

Visualised the cartoon grape ape

As someone who goes up the Wrekin on a regular basis I’m surprised our quaint little hill is used in a turn of phrase so often. I love it. I’ve heard round the Wrekin for years but I didn’t know it reached outside of Shropshire too.

I was really surprised that both a Brummie and a Lancastrian had no clue what I was on about when I said it was mufti at DS’ school recently. They just called it ‘non uniform day’ apparently so I wonder if that’s regional or just not often used?

I didn’t realise it was rude until I was an adult. Another rude word was twat - for me just meant being a bit of an idiot.

nesh - never heard of this until went to uni (Wales ). It was used as a (friendly) mild insult.

Clothes horse - for clothes airer

Jobby - for poo (sorry to lower the tone).

Yes, that's where it comes from - but if you google "apeth" there are plenty of definitions with that spelling. I don't think the "h" is ever pronounced on Corrie.

Pump = passing wind, my friend down the road said trump which I thought was weird (if we'd have said fart my mother would have had our 'guts for garters' or 'tanned our hides)