From ‘barmy’ to ‘wazzock’, this is the (occasionally disputed) history of Britain’s best naughty words.
There are two main theories for how we came to say 'barmy'. One interesting idea is that it is rooted in a psychiatric hospital called Barming that once existed in Maidstone, Kent. But it could also come from an Old English word for yeast – the implications being that a ‘barmy’ person’s brain is fermenting.
This word for harmless idiot actually has a close relationship with a far, far more serious insult. It’s derived from the rhyming slang ‘Berkeley Hunt’ (or ‘Berkshire Hunt’). We’ll let you figure out the rest.
This very mild insult is actually rooted in Arabic, where it literally means ‘daughter’. It was adopted by British servicemen in the Middle East around 1855.
Conjuring images of gung-ho spitfire pilots gently reprimanding Jerry, it is thought that ‘blighter’ comes from the word ‘blight’, first used around 1611 by gardeners and farmers to describe general agricultural diseases (a meaning it still retains today).
