If you’re British, it’s not “awesome”
If you’re British, it’s not “awesome”. That’s an American word, like “sidewalk”, “gas” for petrol, “critter”, “varmint”, “tarnation” and “gotten” as the third form of the verb. Americans, you’re welcome to use them; they’re your words, but they are not English.
If you want knee-jerk circle-jerk response to mediocre design, the term is “Brendan Dawesome“.
If you want to express actual approbation for something, the English terms are “spiffing”, “top-hole”, “wizard” or “ticketyboo”.
Thank you. Bye.
29 Responses to “ If you’re British, it’s not “awesome” ”
Isn’t the term “spiffing-wot!” 
I can’t believe Mr. Dawesome hasn’t opened his foolish yapper yet to contribute yet another short-sighted and poorly worded epithet on your AWESOME-ness. 
super, smashing, great. Not often I’ll post links to videos, but this one is going to get posted
I prefer fabulous.
Brilliant!
Did I use that correctly?
I would add, “capital” and “top-notch” to that list.
In a similar vein, let’s not forget the classic “hurrah!”
Surely it’s “Tiggerty Boo” ?????????!!
Another perfectly valid alternative would be “Safe innit, y’knaaawotimean bro?”
[...] Bruce Lawson’s personal site : If you’re British, it’s not “awesome&rd…If you want to express actual approbation for something, the English terms are “spiffing”, “top-hole”, “wizard” or “ticketyboo”. [...]
Ace! Truly; at least when I was growing up. Splendid.
What the fuck is wrong with “quite good”?
Wizard, old chap
Happy to call it a draw !!!
http://www.associations.rafinfo.org.uk/code_names.htm
Under “T” old bean
‘Brilliant’ is the word for me; especially with the final t enunciated clearly.
You are wrong, these words are english.
After colonizing the world, bringing havoc, pain and death over several societies, british people have to accept that there is now more than one english, some evolving outside the UK. And they are all true english. And they aren’t owned by the UK. And its the United Kingdoms own fault.
It is pretty nationalistic and narrow minded to think otherwise. You may be shocked to see this part of you, but obviously it is there.
Anna, you are perfectly entitled to your opinion, but I think you’ll find there is no form of English where capitalisation or the apostrophe are optional.
Other than that, a spiffing contribution to the conversation.
Ta duck.
Well, according to an English dictionary, the English-English meaning is different from the American-English version:
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=5166&dict=CALD
Which is perfectly summed up by Eddy Izzard:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rYT0YvQ3hs
@Brucel
What then would your opinion of the likes of amn’t, ’tis, ye, childer, mitching, craic, wee (small), etc.
Be they English?
@Martin Precisely targeted and nicely executed, sir.
For myself, I’m always on the lookout for good English put-downs. Personal favourites ‘du jour’ (yes, yes, I know) are ghastly, beastly, and horrid — preferably prefaced with a reinforcing “perfectly”.
That said, it irks me somewhat that Mr Bruce disapproves of me appropriating “Ornery varmint” for my comedic, grizzled prospector-esque needs.
Fair ’nuff
I love the fact that this is now slipping into the Twitter vocabulary! ™
Is there an official definition for the word brucelawsome (sic) yet?
Martin, thank you so much.
well you foooool the langwitch is called ENGLISH you just messed it up why dont you get your own langwitch and call it amercan
oh yeah its crisps not chips
chips are the yellow things you get at mcdonnalds
awesome conversation
[...] colleague Bruce Lawson thought it might be spiffing if the description of the <ruby> element that appears in the HTML5 spec was clarified a bit, [...]
Awesome video! Oh crap….The Wizard has just done a spiffing top-hole in my ticketyboo.