...to make a UK map of slang for bunking off lessons...

[WalkDontWalk]

This is a spin-off from another thread....

Skipping lessons or entire days of school was 'bunking off' where I grew up - which was Sarf London.

There's an Arctic Monkeys song in which Alex mentions 'she wagged English and Science', which I checked with a friend from Sheffield, and it means what I thought it meant.

I think you could make a map of the UK by plotting regional slang for skipping lessons.

Playing hookey.

NE England

We call it "Playing with Granny's spatula" here in Milton Keynes.

Manchester - we called it skiving

Skiving - North West

Glasgow - skiving

Dogging it - just outside Glasgow

Wagging - North West.

I never went to a school where it was physically possible to bunk off/do a runner, but we did doss a lot in business studies as the class was mainly people who hadn’t handed in their options forms. North midlands.

Playing hookey is mentioned in the 1960s American novel Freaky Friday, so I suspect it’s an Americanism.

Skiving in my area meant sitting chatting in class doing no work, not physically being absent from the lesson.

Mitching - Swansea

Although that may have fallen out of favour, just checked with DD and she had no idea what it meant. Apparently its just bunking off now.

Skiving - also North West, about as far west as you can get.
It’s not only used for missing school, though. If you were at work, and sitting idly in the stock cupboard instead of being on the shop floor, that would also be skiving.

I recognise all the others, apart from the spatula one.

We called it mitching in Co Antrim too.

There’s a quiz here that maps all the different words we use www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/15/upshot/british-irish-dialect-quiz.html

Twagging/twagging off. East Yorkshire.

Dogging it - East Midlands

Wagging it - West Midlands

On the beak/beek? Belfast

Skidging - west coast Scotland

Wagging - East Midlands

Mitching - SW England.

Skiving off - Essex

Mooching South Wales

Sagging off -Liverpool

Wagging - North Mcr. Skiving is just wasting time in general e.g. taking 20 mins to come back from the staff room after delivering a message to another teacher etc.

On the mung: South Wales (near Swansea)