Oh bugger!

The British do like to swear. But when we do, we choose our swear words very carefully. We instinctively know when we can get away with saying "Oh bugger" and when it would be best not to. Americans would definitely avoid saying “bugger” at all times, unless they meant it literally. The British, on the other hand, would rarely use it with its literal meaning. It’s far too rude.

The same could be said for “piss”. We don’t like to use it literally either (we’d rather say something like “Excuse me, where are the Ladies/Gents…”). However, we don’t mind using the expression to talk about how we feel. Used in combination with “off”, it simply means “annoyed”.

• “I’m so pissed off with Olympic Airlines. My flight was delayed again.”

• “What’s wrong with Julia? Oh, she’s just really pissed off that she didn’t get a pay rise.”

Note: we have to feel pretty strongly about something to use this expression — and we usually check that there’s nobody around who might be offended by it, such as the boss. Whether we use it or not would depend on the company, the situation and the effect we want to achieve. It’s not the kind of expression you expect to hear a politician use. Even a British one!

Alistair Darling

Silly bugger! I think he just made an honest mistake. What he really meant to say was “I’m really pissed off with Gordon Brown”. Now, that I could understand.

We don’t recommend you use this expression, unless you are really sure that you won’t cause any problems. In our online exercise, we provide you with some alternative adjectives that you can use instead.