Ten for Tuesday: My Favourite British Words

I've always been fascinated by Brit-speak. Even after living here for six years -- and adopting much of the local vocab -- there are words that just jump out at me as being so British. Here are my top ten!

1. Knackered. What a day. I'm knackered! It's so expressive you can't help but love it.

2. Rubbish. Ashley Cole is absolute rubbish. Don't worry if you don't know who Ashley Cole is. Take it from me, he's rubbish.

3. Rubber. Please can you hand me a rubber? I'm not getting fresh; (yay! semi-colon!)don't worry. Over here, it means eraser.

4. Loo. Where's the loo? I'm desperate. It sounds so much prettier than bathroom!

5. Aluminium. No, that's not a typo. It really is a-lu-min-i-um over here.

6. Trousers. What's that in your trousers? I dunno why, but the word makes me snicker. In the UK, 'pants' means underwear.

7. Anti-clockwise. This cracks me up. It's just bizarre to me.

8. Bap. I'll have a bacon bap, please. OR She's got a nice set of baps on her. Yes, this wonderful little word is dual-functional, meaning either bread-rolls or breasts!

9. Biro. I'll need a biro if you want me to write that down. A ball-point pen. For some reason.

10. Boffin. He studied for ten hours last night. What a boffin!

I made it to ten today! Yay! And a massive thanks to the lovely Jen at Unedited for featuring The Hating Game on her blog today!

Any foreign words you particularly like?

Where are the Brits?

In my recent explorations through the blogosphere I've noticed one thing: the number of British writing blogs compared to North American ones is severely lacking.

I could be wrong, but I have tried to find British writers who blog -- writers who, like me, aspire to have their fiction published. And I've found some great ones, but for the most part the majority of blogs I've encountered have been from across the Pond.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, but reading Karen Jones Gowen's post about demographics made me wonder if I should seek out more Brits (if you haven't read her post, hop over - it's great food for thought). After all, I am based in London, this is where I have the most influence with bookshops should I ever be so lucky, and even though it is a global marketplace and all that, it makes sense to target my own geographical location.

But it's been a tough task! Have aspiring British writers not fully hopped on board the blogging bus?

And if they have, then where the bl**dy hell are they?

**If anyone reading this is a writer, from the UK, with a blog, please leave a comment so I can follow you!**