Do you ever have the urge to talk like a posh git Brit? When the need to sound like an overgrown English public schoolboy overwhelms you, just pepper your language with some of the following words and expressions – most of which are horribly outdated and only uttered nowadays by non-Brits pretending to be posh Brits — and you’ll be  well on your way to becoming a toff, a pompous twit, or a good old-fashioned Hooray Henry in no time at all. Jeeves and Wooster would be proud. Bottoms up, old boy!

By George! By golly! By ginger! By gosh!: Basically a posh old version of OMG! The “minced oath” or exclamation dates from the early 1600s, when “George” and the other g-words were used as substitutes for God to avoid blasphemy. The expression started off as “for George” or “before George,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED’s earliest example is from Ben Jonson’s 1598 play Every Man in His Humor: “I, Well! he knowes what to trust to, for George.” Here’s Henry Higgins, in one of the expression’s more famous examples: Continue reading →