Used to indicate either that you were not playing a particular game or that the rules of that game did not apply to you at that moment in time.

For example - when playing 'tick' (or tig, or tiggy etc) - if, when tagged to make you 'it', you say "I'm barley" (preferably crossing your fingers at the same time) then you will not be 'it' and the game can continue to flow around you.

Christ, that was harder to explain than I thought it was going to be...

I don't know where you live now Mousey but it's very common everywhere that I have lived in England and Wales, often used with regards to ciggies/chips/lifts home gfrom the pub and so on.

"Itchy Boris!"
Always said sarcastically, while stroking an imaginary goatee beard. This was an expression of disbelief, when you thought someone was telling you tall tales.

"Sussed"
"Sussed out"
"Sussed out badly"

All were usually emphasised by flicking the thumb against the index and middle fingers. The same gesture could be used to show that something was "wicked"

But I went to a tough school. Treasured memories.

"BUNDLE!!!!"
As demontrated by the Arsenal football team http://www.arsenalpics.com/image/laurent_koscielny_celebrates_scoring_th...

what was that one all about?

As in very good.
Late 70s, probably originated from Monty Python's slightly silly party.

'A barney' -Shouted by increasing numbers of kids when a fight broke out.

'All join on for a game of war' - involved walking around the playground with arms round each others shoulders, collecting other interested parties until you reached sufficient numbers for said game to begin.

'Fag it' - at break, our game of football would inevitably be taking place on the same pitch as 3 other games - generally held by older lads. When our ball came within their reach they'd boot it over the wall with the instruction for us to 'fag it'. For a while we combatted this by playing with a 50% deflated ball which was almost impossible to boot over the wall. However, needless to say, our game suffered. In the end we solved our problem by inviting Mal Reilly to join our game. Whilst not a good player, Mal was nails, and came from a family of nails. Whilst from that point our game was always a borderline warzone, the play flowed.

two handy prefixes ' eg min-good, mega-swizz.

Their roots are clearly opposites, but due to a firm teenage grasp of hyperbole (or is it litotes?) both were deemed to mean very. It made sense at the time.

Oh, and swizz.

and
Who wants a game of Japs and English?
The latter, especially, doesn't seem to be heard so much these days.

Going back to my primary school time it was probably "Tether the horses, there's a good man"

When trying to scab a puff of a fag. A negative response would trigger a
"piss off then bungo" .... I think it was just my school!

when teachers were approaching and we were up to no good.

what a "doss" was, back in my secondary school days. Or, in the case of Mr.Mordant's metalwork lessons, "a right doss..." Kids don't seem to get so many dossing opportunities these days. Shame - it's all 'get 10 A*s and off to sixth form with you...' There should be more dossing generally. It never did me any harm*

*This probably isn't true, as access to my financial and medical records might well attest.

When something didn't turn out as planned the expression of derision "you're jarred a bunch!" was used.

Seems to be peculiar to Inverness and surrounding area that one.

However my sons have quite happily taken it up so perhaps it will flourish anew.

3 such words of yore spring to mind :

Skill : if something was good it was 'skill'; if it was very good it became 'well skill'.

Droppies : as described above, if playing footy with small team sizes, then the goalie would be allowed out on an invisible leash to avoid possible boredom and muddage, playing as an outfield player. Dropback goalies was faaar to long to say, so down it got reduced to this, as in, 'we having droppies in this game?'

Croggies : this might just be in Leicester or the East Midlands in general, but if you gave a mate a lift on the bicycle, wherein the pedaller pedalled whilst standing on the pedals with a chum getting a lift sitting on the seat, then this would be it, as in 'gizzus a croggy, mate!' Saw a lot of this when Choppers were around - that label on the extra long seat that said 'no more than 1 person at a time on this seat' was a red rag to a bull - challenge accepted, Raleigh! Four was the record down our way!

BR
FT

Declared at the start of a game of conkers to establish if the Stamps rule was being used. "Stamps" meant that you could win by stamping on a dropped conker. When playing under the Stamps rule you could aim for your opponent's hand, thus encouraging the dropping of the conker. You could also stamp on a hand trying to retrieve a dropped conker.

I've posted this before, but worth repeating: The Law of the Playground, which bills itself "the least coherent encyclopaedia of playground insults on the internet".

Brilliant stuff and exhaustive in its thoroughness and nastiness. If this sort of thing is your speed, you'll be there for days.

Applicable when someone had just had their hair cut. Sometimes because of headlice infestation.

A G
A G R

A G R O

AGGRO!

Whereby someone would have the back of their underpants pulled up to wedge the gussetty bit into the anal cleft. Reached two pinnacles in my childhood, the first where a poor boy was hung on a coat hook in the cloak room by the back of his pants.

The second was on a scout camp where one lad was ritually wedged everyday with such vigour that his pants would rip. He would then fish them out of his trousers (without the need to remove his trousers) and throw them on the camp fire. I have no idea what his mum said when he got home with no pants.

were invariably known simply as "Docs". A pair of Docs.

in Belfast meant (& still means) keep an eye out, keep watch. I dread to think where the expression came from.

To describe a fart.

Joey Deacon

Joey

Joe A, Joe B, Joe C, Joe D, Joe E...

...Just me then?

As in Cock of the School - the toughest, most psycho-likely-to-end-up-in-a-young-offender-intstitution kid in the school. Neil Cartwright in the case of my middle school.

Flid! Biff! Mong! Spacker!

It was because the term "spastic" became one of abuse that The Spastics Society changed its name to SCOPE. The term of abuse faded. And was replaced with "Scoper!"

Times change, but kids can still be malignant little shits.

Used when you had destroyed your opponents argument

"Clamped! Necked! Shattered and Stunned!"

Good times

today?

Anyway, I can't imagine anybody being called a 'wally' these days.

Or reciting these odes:

'Made you look , made you stare, made you lose your underwear'

'In 1966,
the Queen pulled down her knix,
She licked her bum
And said Yum Yum
In 1966'

'Rah Rah Ree,
Hit me on the knee,
Rah Rah rollocks,
Hit me on the other knee'

Cyril Fletcher would be proud.

Something of below-par value.

Now this is what this blog is for!

Dan, for some reason, briefly meant "amazing" or "wicked". "Wicked" itself was often shortened to "wick".

A dimwit was often a "dillon" (possibly a dylan: I never clarified the spelling to my satisfaction). "Joey" too, I'm sad to say. Also the usual variations on "spastic", complete with tongue-in-chin face, often accompanied by slapping of one's tongue-filled chin. Bloody horrible. If we hadn't been stupid little kids, I'd be ashamed of us.

Two Gloucester-specific ones:

1) Forester (to denote inbred, knuckle-dragging types. The Forest of Dean has, shall we say, a certain reputation).

2) Coney Hiller. Mental person. Weirdo. I regret to explain that Coney Hill was - before Care In The Community - the local mental hospital. I think it shut down, but in the 80s it was synonymous with our cartoon notions of craziness.

the laziest kid on a football pitch, always found within 10 yards of the opposition,s goalie, waiting for the ball to be hoofed up to him. Excessive mooching often led to a good "chinning" from said goalie.

Gronda Gronda.

Well established word when I was a lad, and I still use it. See also "nesh" meaning scared - I use that too, and people generally don't understand it.

That I haven't heard in some 25 years, but is still very probably used outside of London was, P*** shop, to relate to the generic, Indian-owned corner shop. All too commonly used, sadly.

Really brought me up short when I heard somebody use it the other day. It was like jammying open a vault full of 1970s nasties.

who smelt it, dealt it
(used when possibly trying to cover your own wind breaking escapades)

Round our way, if you gave someone on a left on the back of your bike.

EDIT just seen post above - I'm from Nottingham so definitely East Mids

of local institutions round Nottingham

There was a sliding scale of calling someone a nutter referring to the local psychiatric hosptials.

A bit mad? - "you're a Mapperley"
Pretty off the wall and dim? - "Saxondale" (said with tongue pushed into lower lip)
A total nut-job? "Rampton" (generally said quietly from a safe distance)

Hmmm.

Odd football-ish games played on the semi-circle of a netball court. When we were younger and less skilled, it was One-Bounce Parry.

Don't ask me what the rules were.

Were known as "seggs" round our way in West Lancs. Great for kicking up sparks, especially when getting a backie on a mate's pushbike.

so I don't hear any playground expressions at all.

Am I missing something here?

ignore this, how do you delete posts?

as in 'You've got the Lurgey, I'm injected'

No doubt from the Goon Show, originally.

Meaning dead easy.

"Can you score that penalty?" "Sure, it'll be a cinch"

I ate two dock-off chocolate bars and felt really sick.

Speaking of chocolate bars, we used to sing "John Law, broke the law, because he ate a chocolate bar" at one bar which, looking back, was odd. Not just rhyming Law with law, but also choosing a word that didn't rhyme with law for the final flourish. May as well have just said 'lemon meringue.'

meaning can I borrow that after you, "Two's Up with your 2000AD comic Smudger!"

"Dog Eye"
meaning a look-out - when one was up to mischief someone in the gang was always assigned as Dog-Eye to keep a look-out for teachers or rozzers.

"Durrrr" or "Durrrbrain"
Variation on the Joey Deacon/you're thick scenario, usually said with tongue wedged in chin - whenever I see the footballer Joe Cole I am immediately transported back 30 odd years and find myself mumbling duuurrr.

A dip was a rhyme used in the process of "dipping"
Dipping was a method of selection, usually to decide who would or would not be "it!" If you were the one being pointed at on the last word of the dip, you were chosen/eliminated as required.

Popular dips included "There's A Party On The Hillside" and "Ippa Dippa Dation, My Operation"

All that rhyming and pointing sounds a bit like hip-hop.

Ip dip sky blue
Who's it? Not you
Not because you're dirty, not because you're clean
My mother says you're the fairy queen
So out you must go
Because the fat man says so

I wanted to post these while I could remember them, and so unforgivably speedscrolled to the comments field - apologies if already registered -

Spaz; from spastic. Usually your best mate
Mong; mongol, ditto
Wagging it; skiving, skiving off
Skiving (off); wagging it
Fuzzer; new boy, first year
Fuzz (v.); to draw the teeth of a comb (preferably metal) across the back of a "fuzzer's" neck, with the aim of drawing blood
In the FACE!; exhortation of encouragement from spectators at fight
Nodder; condom
Bog; toilet
Grolley; bogey
Flob; to expectorate
Mo; homosexual
AYA!; generic cry of (usually fake) physical distress, as in "AYA! That's me bad arm, you spaz!"
Deadleg: blunt impact of kneecap to rear thigh, crippling when correctly delivered

Yes, I went to an "all boys" school - why do you ask? There was also a dedicated term for putting someone's head in the toilet and then flushing, which I've forgotten.

A rhyme did the rounds, usually spoken in a sing-song pseudo American voice:

"Isn't it a pity
That the woman in the city
Got hit on the titty
With a hard boiled egg"

Which managed the magic double of being slightly rude and totally bizarre.

'And all of a sudden a big mealie pudden' came flying through the air,
It hit Mrs Kelly a shot in the belly and knocked her down the stair.'

I'm not too sure where this came from but I've always loved the Irish
dynamics of it!

If you had something to get rid of, you'd hold it up and shout "Quis?". The first to shout "Ego!" got the 'thing' in question.

Do kids play war at school any more?