BenK91

When I first met my fiancés family (USC's) I referred to her dad as a Keen Geezer to which he thought I was insulting him and looked at me funny.

They now use it whenever I go and visit them 'Hey, there's that keen geezer'

Anian

Geezer is seen as an insulting term for an old man.

Americans don't really get the idea of insults being a term of endearment anyway.

SultanOfSwing

Yeah, don't try calling one a c*** ...

Beaverstate

old 'coot'?

moneypenny20

Daughter's best friend's dad (Aus) has always called my daughter 'Geezer'. He thinks it funny/clever/something I went round there the other day, wandered in as usual to be greeted with 'Hey it's Mummy Geezer'. Yeah, no.

Beaverstate

I think that 'old geezer' depends on who is delivering it. Much like dirty old man is winked upon when delivered by another old man

Gordon Barlow

Not just Americans, of course. C*** is probably the strongest of all taboo words in English, unacceptable in most social classes and circumstances. Even as a light-hearted throwaway term of abuse, it is packed full of contempt. Among good friends, okay - among strangers, not. It's a generational thing, too. My mother would not have tolerated it in any circumstances - "foul-mouthed yob", she would have said of anybody who used it in her presence; and I'd be surprised if her American equivalent would have a different reaction. Indeed, my wife and I - being in our seventies - would react much the same. No doubt we have led sheltered lives, but still...

moneypenny20

I disagree that it's a generational thing. I hate to hear/read it and my daughters can't stand it.

SultanOfSwing

You wouldn't like it in Australia, then.

I think it's a brilliant word, myself. I'm sick of all the ****ing prudes and the word police telling us what we can't say anyway. C***s to a man, the lot of them

Nutmegger

Now thereis a British usage that drives me crazy! When I left the UK, brilliant was confined to a particularly shiny diamond, an especially clever scientist ... then a few years later, everything under the sun had somehow become "brilliant." That, along with "gutted" as the reaction to any and all untoward occurrences, major or minor . . .

SultanOfSwing

Overuse has crept in, yes. I tend to use it more sarcastically now than genuinely (that post is an exception). As in, someone tells me something shite, like I have to cut the grass, or the children are sharing one of my days off, and it gets a resigned 'brilliant' under my breath.

I don't think I have used 'gutted' ever, but I could be wrong.

mrken30

I had to explain what going out on the lash meant. I said it means the same as going out on the piss, still got a confused face.

SultanOfSwing

Then you inevitably end up having to explain what you mean when you say you are going for a slash, while you are engaging in the above activity.

Anian

You know, getting trolleyed? Wankered? Legless?

SultanOfSwing

****faced? Arseholed?