BRITISH SLANGS FOR IELTS (Part 26)

• Owt - This is Yorkshire for anything. Similarly nowt is Yorkshire for nothing. Hence the expression "you don't get owt for nowt". Roughly translated as "you never get anything for nothing" or "there's no such thing as a free lunch".

• Pants - This is quite a new expression - I have no idea where it came from. Anyway, it is now quite trendy to say that something which is total crap is "pants". For instance you could say the last episode of a TV show was "total pants".

• Pardon me - This is very amusing for Brits in America. Most kids are taught to say "pardon me" if they fart in public or at the table etc. In America it has other meanings which take us Brits a while to figure out. I thought I was surrounded by people with flatulence problems!

• Parky - Either short for Michael Parkinson, a famous chat show host, or more likely a word to describe the weather as being rather cold!

• Pass - This means I don't know and comes from the old TV show, Mastermind, where contestants were made to say "pass" if they did not know the answer to the question.

• Pavement pizza - Well here the pavement is the sidewalk and a pavement pizza is a descriptive way of saying vomit. Often found outside Indian restaurants early on a Sunday morning.