BRITISH SLANGS FOR IELTS (Part 14)

• Engaged - When you ring someone and they are already on the phone you will get the engaged tone. In other words, they will be engaged. You would say you get the busy signal or the line is busy.

• Excuse me - This is a great one! It's what kids are taught to say when they belch in public. We are also taught to say "pardon me" if we fart out loud. Unfortunately in American "excuse me" means you are encroaching in someone's personal space and you say "pardon me" when you don't hear someone properly. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that actually Americans are not belching and farting all the time.

• Faff - To faff is to dither or to fanny around. If we procrastinated when getting ready for bed, as kids, our Dad use tell us we were faffing around.

• Fagged - If you are too lazy or tired to do something you could say "I can't be fagged". It means you can't be Bothered.

• Fagging - Fagging is the practice of making new boys at boarding schools into slaves for the older boys. If you are fagging for an older boy you might find yourself running his bath, cleaning his shoes or performing more undesirable tasks.

• Fancy - If you fancy something then it means you desire it. There are two basic forms in common use - food and people. If you fancy a cake for example it means you like the look of it and you want to eat it. If you see someone of (hopefully) the opposite sex then you might fancy them if you liked the look of them and wanted to get to know them a little better!!!