As Nigerians we have in one way or the other tried to imitate speaking an accent that’s not ours, undeniably the American accent might be our go-to accent improvisation or mimicking especially when guys try to pick up a girl be it in person or especially when on a call, but we won’t dwell on that for too long as today’s focus is on the British slangs we might have heard times and again but not know the meaning to.
When we hear slangs like cap or capping, y’all, bae, drip, swag, ice, hella, lotta and of recent cancelled and ok boomer, (just to name a few), we easily identify with them as being slangs that originated from an American origin that has spread into pop culture in all parts of the world; a reason being that it’s easy to hear an American speak and their pronunciation of such words is too nice we can’t help but imitate as well.
On the British accent part, yes when you hear them speak it, man you can’t just help but fall in love with how it’s being spoken especially with their careful enunciation of each word but what might make it hard hard for our ears to process is that it might sound a bit unnatural when compared to our favourite American accent and their noticeable omission of the “Ts” in their words especially when it’s at the end or sometimes in the middle causing a lot of social media memes we might have noticed by now. Take this sentence as an example:
– American accent: “Can I get a cup of water please?”
– British accent: “Can I geh a cuppa wa-ha please?” – is likely what our Nigerian ears will pick up. But jokes aside there are a lot of slangs used by this Britons especially by the Blacks we must have heard multiple times but probably given the wrong meaning to, so enough being said, let’s geh to the ma-ha shall we?
- Peng / Lengting: Used to refer to a beautiful and attractive female
- Food / Grub: Refers to drugs especially heroin and cocaine
- Take a piss: To mock someone or sarcastically joke about a serious matter
- Take a meek: To accept your loss or defeat
- Birds: Used to refer to girls that are your side chicks
- Lick off: To cut off or to beat up sometime or someone
- Nick / Nicked: To steal or rob / To be arrested
- P or P’s: Short for British Pounds usually used to refer to money
- Paigon / Pagan: Used to refer to someone against you but can also be used as a slang for fake people, liars and betrayals
- Pree / Preeing: To check thoroughly or pay attention to someone or something
- Roadman: Used to rerer to a street urchin or a drug dealer or a gang member
- Skeng / Leng / peng-a-leng / Skeng-a-leg: Refers to gun or firearms
- Lurk / lurky: To go somewhere or roam about
- Still or Styll: A filler word used to add emphasis (can be compared to the slang tho)
- Banging: used when something is good or sick (in a good way) but to be banging means to be under the influence of drugs
- Skengman / Lengman: someone who carries a gun usually a gangster
- Merky / Merk / Murk / Murky: To kill or attack someone
- Yutes / Youts: Refers to younger ones using around 11-15 years
- German: Referring to the Mercedes Benz brand of car especially the expensive kind
- Gully: Depending on the usage it can mean good, cool or dirty, raw
- Jarring: Annoying
- Youngers: Used discriminate someone who isn’t up to your level, someone you are better than but can also be used to refer to a young person
- Bird: Seldomly used to refer to prison sentence
- Elizabeth: A large sum of money; can also be used to refer to the Queen Elizabeth
- Ends: Hood or Slum equivalent in American slang
- Crep / Crept: “Crep” refers to a pair of shoes while “crept” can refer to stalking someone or following someone without them noticing
- Foreign: An expensive car not made in the UK like Lamborghini and the likes
- Standard: An exclamatory word meaning ‘of course’ or ‘obvioiusly’ or ‘it goes without saying’
- Top Boy: Used to refer to someone who is at the top of the chain or literally who controls the actions of people around him; usually associated with a drug dealer or street thug who has garnered respect among his peers and has money
- Mandem: Close associates or friends
- Ting: Thing
- Wasteman: A useless person or someone who acts stupidly
- Big Man Ting: Used to refer to someone being serious or taking decisive actions; also used when a person wants to be taken importantly
- Addison Lee: A public transporting company similar to Uber and Lyft
So when you hear a statement like – mandem are paigon, you can’t see me around them – you readily know the meaning to be that the speaker is referring to people who are against him or being fake by their actions so he’ll never hang with them socially or for any reasons.
Or statement like – John’s a made man now, man’s cruising in a German – you know it to be that John’s a rich man and he’s riding around town in his Mercedes-Benz.
Well there are just so many slangs to cover but the hope is that we’ve enlightened you a bit on some of them.
By now I guess you can decipher the meaning behind the following statements:
– Dem Arsenal Fans always talking a piss fam, talking about they’re gonna win the EPL next season.
– Man’s on a big man ting ’cause I got big plans.
– If dem youngers keep jarring, I’mma have to use my skeng on them.
– Devil’s a wasteman, I got no time for him.
Well that’s was easy, wasn’t it?