How many of the "Top 10 favorite British words" are understood by Americans?

Question

Merriam-Webster Dictionary online shows “Top 10 Favorite British Words”. I’m interested in knowing how many of the listed words are understood or accepted by Americans as English, whichever British English or English slang.

The words listed as the top 10 Favorite English are:

1. prat meaning “a stupid person”,
2. twee meaning “affectedly or excessively dainty, delicate, cute, or quaint”,
3. knackered meaning “exhausted”,
4. jiggery-pokery meaning “dishonest activity, or nonsense”,
5. plonk meaning “cheap wine”,
6. chunter meaning “mutter”,
7. whinge meaning “whine”,
8. gormless meaning “stupid”,
9. boffin meaning “scientific expert”,
10. pukka meaning “genuine, first class”.

Answer 1

As a reasonably intelligent American, I understand seven of these without the definitions (prat, twee, knackered, plonk, whinge, boffin, pukka). I would say that none of those sound remotely native to the American English speaker with the possible exception of twee, which is occasionally used (although generally with a negative connotation -- sickeningly cute or cloying).

Answer 2

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that none of these words will be correctly understood by most Americans.

I'm college educated, fairly well-read, and I've never even heard of 6 out of the 10 of these.

• Prat is the only one that I could have defined correctly.
• I always thought that knackered meant drunk, but that's probably my own mis-understanding of the context in which I heard it
• I think I've heard jiggery-pokery and whinge before, but couldn't have defined them for you
• Never heard the other 6.

Answer 3

Just to give more perspective...

As an AmE speaker:

• only one, chunter, have I never heard of before.
• jiggery-pokery sounds like it's from some '30s (american) gangster movie.
• plonk and boffin don't sound particularly British to me and are rare to my ears.
• all the rest sound decidedly British, and if their meaning wasn't immediate out of context, the definition hints are all 'oh right, that's what it meant'. I feel like I can remember the instance for each one of them when I heard/read something British and I was shocked at this bizarre new word.

So 1 of these I've never heard of, 3 of these pass as general English, and the rest as particular to British English (not at all American).

That said, I wouldn't expect most Americans to recognize any of these, except maybe jiggery-pokery.

Answer 4

In my half century plus as an American, the only one of those words I have ever heard in conversation is "boffin". My hobby is plastic airplane modeling and in that small, specialized community the word is sometimes used referring to an expert on certain types of airplanes, usually British airplanes, and most often the Supermarine Spitfire.

Answer 5

I'll toss in my answer.

I did not recognize twee as primarily British, and use it myself. I know plonk from Rumpole and some other British fiction, see it as British, don't use it. I thought whinge was Aussie in origin, it's not (yet) common in the States, but it's a great almost-onomatopoetic word, so I use it often. I knew boffin from a biography of Churchill, who used it in reference to the top scientists working for British war effort, see it as British, don't use it. Vaguely aware of gormless and knackered, hadn't heard of the others. I assume pukka is an import from the Raj?!

Answer 6

I'm American and here's my take:

Twee, plonk and pukka are three I'm not familiar with.

The other's I've heard or used myself.

Answer 7

American here.

I recognized everything except Twee, plonk, chunter and pukka. I'm not sure what that says about me as most people seemed to have heard 'twee' before. I actually use 'whinge' more than 'wine' now. I had always heard gormless to mean someone who was hopelessly naive or gullible rather than stupid. I also took prat to be more like 'jerk' than 'idiot'. Don't know if that's regional or because most of my vocabulary comes from context clues.

Answer 8

I know all of these but chunter. But then, I watch a lot of British TV.

Americans have heard twee a lot in recent years, because some social commentators have picked it up as a handy description of certain trends in pop culture and entertainment (and have broadened its meaning in the process).

Answer 9

As a Briton, I can verify that boffin is still in used in schools, where it has been abbreviated to boff. It is used by schoolchildren to refer to a child who is particularly clever, and is therefore a target for abuse and ridicule. I have heard both my children referred to as boff by their peers.

I'm amazed no-one has mentioned the etymology of plonk in this thread though, so here goes. British and Australian soldiers in World War One converted the French vin blanc into plink-plonk (amongst others, such as ving blong, plinketty-plonk), which became shortened to plonk, to refer to ordinary/cheap wine, though not necessarily bad wine. This died out in the UK, as the average man here didn't drink wine. However, it survived in Australia, as they did make and drink wine there. It returned to the UK in the 1950s, apparently.

A source of more info is here

Answer 10

Five out of ten for me. But I've heard 'pukka' used in a different sense. e.g., Two travelers (one American and one Brit) debark from ferry in Georgetown, Penang (Malaysia). While walking through streets, the Brit sees a Malaysian government employee in khaki uniform, which includes English baggie trousers. The Brit, noticing the baggy trousers, says: 'Penang is very pukka.' The American (me) interprets this remark to mean that among Penang's inhabitants, British customs,culture and clothing styles are still held in esteem despite Malaysia becoming an independent nation.