We are always interested in slang at Jot especially specialised slang, like school slang. Lists can often be found in the appendixes of school histories. Winchester College has probably produced the most slang (there are books). Roedean does quite well but some of the slang is (or was) fairly widespread in British schools, and beyond — e.g. ‘bog’ and ‘MYOB’.
These were found in Memories of Roedean – The First 100 Years by Judy Moore (1998) -copies freely available for less than £10 at Abe, Amazon etc., Many thanks indeed…
Appendix A – School Slang and Sayings.
Aunt – lavatory
Backs and feet – medical examination
BB – bust bodice (later used to mean bra)
Bilge – biology
Bish – faux pas
Bobbing – saying goodnight and shaking hands with the prefect or member of staff on duty
Bog – lavatory (from the 70s)
Boiled babie’s arm – roly-poly
Boot hole – cloakroom
BUFF – best friends forever
Bugs and fleas – medical examination
Bunny run – covered passage connecting different parts of the school
Cardboards – Lisle stockings
Carthaginian brick – a peculiarly hard pudding chitchat – informal meeting of prefects or sub prefects with housemistress to discuss days events
Chucked – banished from a ‘set’
Cockroaches – area underfloor by Bunny run
Continental shelf – where girls sunbathe or watched matches
Crows nest – front room of Heaven
Cubic – cubicle
Dead babies arm – roly-poly
Ears and eyes – medical examination
Festooned hair – hair falling over the face
Fic – fiction library
Forties – lessons (40 minutes)
frogspawn – tapioca pudding
Ganges river muck – caramel pudding
Garbage pudding – pudding made from leftovers
GDR – girls drawing room
Going up the house – blushing
Guillotine list – names of girls house mistress wished to see after lunch
Hearse – The Sans cart
Hearts and lungs – medical examination
Heaven – the top floor
Home – a girl’s house, the rest was school Hotties – hot water bottles
Jaw – reprimand from a housemistress or prefect
JP – junior prep room
KCYS – kindly consider yourself squashed Keen on – having a crush on a senior girl (KO in the 70s)
Keenite – a younger girl with a crush on a senior
KV – watch out
Lax – lacrosse (‘crosse in very early years)
MF – midnight feast
MWF – Bath
Muck – chocolate blancmange
MYOB – mind your own business
Old flats – superior lax pitch
Pi-jaw- A talking to buy a prefect
Pill – lacrosse ball
PL – piano lesson
Pre – prefect
Prison – Roedean
Pump handles – shaking hands with every member of staff on the first and last day of term
Ref – reference library
Sack – holdall to carry books from lesson to lesson
Sassie-B – suspender belt
Scrum tables – free assembly at teatime
Scum – new arrivals, or those who had not made their mark
Sent to the Fic – dealt with for talking in Chapel (no connection with Fic – fiction library)
Set – group of friends in the same house
Sitting up to – sitting next to a member of staff at lunch and making amiable conversation
Special – alternative to set meal for religious reasons and for vegetarians
Spiders – copse of tamarisk trees
SPR – senior prep room
Stave (the Staves) – member(s) of staff
Stodge – teatime sponge cake
Study P – passage connecting each house to school corridor
Sucking- up to – currying flavour with staff Tate & Lyle – number one house matron and her assistant (in the 50s) so called because of their thick lisle stockings
Ticks – marks on a list; three in a week meant early bed on Saturday
Tights – navy knickers
Tigs – I want
Tinks – bell for getting up, chapel, lessons, meals
Thames mud – chocolate blancmange
The special – school train
TTS – bath
You are smiling – your underwear is showing
Veins – I don’t want
Wackie-B – wastepaper basket
Wash hole – washroom
Weights and measures – medical examination
Worms on toast – tinned spaghetti