My auntie used to say 'she looks like she's fallen down the stairs with her hands in her pockets'

Tickety-boo, means everything is in working order/good.

That’s the badger (that’s the one)

Clunge

Fine words butter no parsnips (= put your money where your mouth is/walk the talk)

Gordon Highlanders/Gordon Bennett (= Cockney euphemisms for "God")

Much of a muchness (= more or less the same)

Many a mickle makes a muckle (= little things add up to something greater)

American here with a British dad, spent a big chunk of my childhood in Britain:

"taking the piss" is the most British phrase ever, hands down. It does not make a lick of sense (which I now realize is probably a Southern American expression rivalling "take the piss" in regionalism).

If you don't know what it means, good luck figuring it out. How does one even take the piss? It doesn't correlate to any known human activity I've ever heard of. If one were to literally take someone's piss, I would say you are the subordinate in that interaction, and no doubt. And yet when you know what it means, there is really no anglophone expression that quite serves as a substitute

Good on yer, Britain, for making the perfect expression for mockery that only you can understand.

Fanny's your Aunt

I'm from the SW and my bf is from London so this one always makes me laugh

Gordon Bennett!

The youth of today don't seem to use this for some strange reason.

I remember seeing it on QI. He was a newspaper magnate, I think, who became a figure of fun for some reason.

My dad , now 82 , says STREWTH .it's an expression of anger / frustration.

The expression is thought to derive from the controversial reputation of James Gordon Bennett Jr. (1841–1918), son of Scottish-born James Gordon Bennett Sr. founder and publisher of the New York Herald. Bennett was an accomplished polo player, tennis player and yachtsman.

Pre world war 2 racing driver , who raced at brooklands and was pretty quick by all accounts , superseded in daily speech by Stirling moss.

Yes certainly, the King James Bible was half of our culture and Shakespeare (who probably wrote a chunk of it) was the other. I was watching King of Kings today (1961) which as well as having a blue eyed Jesus featured the quote, "neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet" and I wondered how many knew the whole verse.

Cockney perhaps? Apparently the Australians derive their speech from Cockneys and the New Zealanders from the Scots. Hence an Aussie will say 'fish and chips' and a Kiwi will say 'fush and chups'.

Blue Blood: Spanish origin. Nobility that was purely European had extremely fair skin, whereas those mixed with Moors did not. Due to the fair skin, purely European nobles had easily visible veins, which appeared blue. Hence the term blue blood for someone that is pure nobility.

and speak of Europeans...

Europe(an): The first recorded use of the word Europe appears in a Greek hymn to Apollo where it refers to the Western shore of the Aegean Sea. It then exists as a nebulous geographic concept that defines the land that the Greeks and Romans thought of as theirs (in contrast to Asia and North Africa)

This concept continues to grow and encompass more lands (British Isles, Scandinavia, etc.) until about the 8th century. When what we know as Europe and Europeans are defined by the Carolingians; particularly in contrast to the Islamic states and the Byzantine sphere of influence.

Bless you after a sneeze comes from back in the middle ages or w/e and people thinking demonic spirits that were making you sick were being expelled from your body.

A buck is in reference to a deer pelt that was used for trade. 4 bucks was actually a lot.

I've never heard anyone say long to mean arduous or par to mean tactless remark or slumped to mean tired before; are these really in common use?

"Dench" is a recent silly teenagism, not a popular national Britishism.

Also "Bender" does not necessarily mean what they claim it means. Pfft.

Bobs your uncle, fanny's your aunt

Dinlow

Cockwomble

Numpty

She’s a rum un. (She’s a rum one) It means she or he is naughty or mischievous it’s is used in a light hearted, cheeky way.

That one makes more sense when you realise that it means May the flowering tree, and not the month.

This post butters no parsnips.

This proverbial saying is English and dates from the 17th century. It expresses the notion that fine words count for nothing and that action means more than flattery or promises.

One I heard often growing up in the west of Scotland: He/she is a chanty-wrastler, meaning an unscrupulous person or someone full of shit. A chanty is the Scots word for a chamber pot, a wrastler was the servant that emptied them; basically the lowest of the low.

There’s variations on the spelling; wrastler/wrestler/(w)rassler

Never heard this one, could you explain it please?

Definitely rum. My mum's generation would call people "a rum bugger".

Who do you think you are, the Queen of Sheba?

It’s like Blackpool illuminations in here

I feel like a lot of these are commonly used in America, too, though. I definitely know have known people to use these: waffle, smarmy, shirty, shambles, rounds, pea souper, pear-shaped, miffed, gobsmacked, gallivant, full of beans, chinwag, bender, bees knees.

Did they mean these’ll confuse if English isn’t your first language? Also, I wonder if chockablock and chock full have any relation.

We use most of these terms in Australia, too.

I once asked an American if I could "bum a fag" (steal a cigarette) from him. It wasn't the best start to a conversation I ever had...

I used to play in a band. The singers friend was over from Scotland. He was gay high doesn’t matter except for something he asked me once. He asked me “you wanna have sex?” I was like WHAT?! Like very out of the blue sort of conversation to be having. Then he said it again and I realized he was asking “you’re on at half six?”

Yes... yes we play at 6:30 (it was a festival which is why we were playing at 6:30)

This reads like an American that spent 2 weeks in London feels like he's learnt something secret. Most of these are not uniquely British.

Who put 50p in you?

Job's a good 'un.

Can't be arsed.

I'd rather shit in my hands and clap

I worked with a middle aged guy whose wife was seriously ill in a wheelchair. One break-time someone asked him if he missed being able to have sex. He replied "nah, these days I'd rather have a good shit and a piece of cake". Not a common phrase but it's stuck with me for over 20 years.