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In the last decade, a wealth of books has brought together ideas to help teachers have the greatest impact on student learning. Here are just a few

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Are you moving to the UK for study or work? The British Council's Sophie Cannon explains some of the weird and wonderful words and phrases you might encounter.
'Hiya, mate, fancy a cuppa and a chin-wag?' 'I can't. Sorry, pal. I'm skint - so gutted!'

When you first arrive in the UK, you might be mystified by some of the words and phrases people use. This, unhelpfully, will often also vary depending on which part of the UK you are in. Don't worry, this is completely normal and you will soon get used to it.

People here, like in many other places, often use slang - especially with friends and family. You might hear some regional dialect words, too. A lot of these words are shared with other English-speaking countries, but many are unique to Britain, so even if you're a grade-A student or a native speaker, you might still be baffled.

To help you 'cotton on' (slang for 'understand'), here are some common words you may hear. It is worth noting that it is best to avoid using slang with strangers, in the classroom, or in formal situations until you're confident with the language. People may think it impolite if you use slang in these situations. With your friends, however, it can be great fun trying out new words.

Below is a guide to get you started.
Starter slang
'Alright?' means 'Hello, how are you?'.

'Hiya' or 'Hey up' - these informal greetings both mean 'hello' and are especially popular in the north of England.

'What about ye?' is popular in Northern Ireland and is another way of saying 'How are you?'

'Howay' is popular in the north east of England and means 'let's go' or 'come on'.

'Ta' is another way of saying 'thank you'.

'Cheers' is usually said as a toast when you raise your glasses to celebrate, but it also means 'thank you'.
Slang through the ages
Don't be confused if someone calls you 'pet', 'duck', 'sweetie', 'love', 'chicken', 'chuck' or 'sunshine'. Older people in the UK often use these terms when they are addressing younger people as a sign of affection and friendliness. (It is usually not appropriate for younger people to use these terms with older people, however).

'Bairn' is especially popular in Scotland and the north east of England and means 'baby' or 'young child'.

'Lass' or 'lassie' is another word for 'girl'. This is mainly in the north of England and Scotland.

'Lad' is another word for boy.

'Bloke' or 'chap' means 'man'.

Your 'mate' or 'pal' is your friend.

'Me old mucker' or 'chum' both mean 'friend', too. They are more old-fashioned now, but you may still hear people use them in a light-hearted way.

'Our kid' refers to 'my brother' or 'my sister'. It is especially popular in the northwest and midlands of England.
Good and bad slang
There are lots of slang and dialect words to say something is good or cool. For example, in Wales you might hear people say 'tidy' or 'lush', while in Birmingham you might hear 'bostin'. In the north of England, you might hear 'ace' and 'mint' and in Northern Ireland you might hear 'dead on' or 'grand'.

'Wicked' and 'sick' formally mean evil or distasteful, but in slang terms they can mean cool, too. These words are particularly popular in London and the south of England. If something is uncool, people may say it is 'naff' or 'cheesy' (the latter is used especially for anything with clichés - a cheesy song, for example). If it is bad or suspicious, then it it could be 'dodgy'.

If someone is happy, they might say 'I'm made up!' or 'I'm well chuffed!'. When disappointed, though, they might say 'I'm gutted'. If someone is being 'mardy', this means they are acting moody or sulky. 'It's doing my head in!' means it is annoying me, and 'it's all kicking off!' means an argument is happening.

The word 'solid' usually refers to an object, but in slang, it can mean that something or someone is resilient or difficult. For example, 'she just ran the London marathon. She's solid!', or 'that economics exam was solid!'. You may hear people use the slang terms 'well', 'dead' instead of very or really. For example, 'it was dead good' or 'that exam was well difficult!'. Meanwhile a 'tad' means a little bit. For example, 'that is a tad expensive'.
Social slang
You may well be invited to a 'do', 'bash', or 'get-together', which are all other words for a party or group gathering. A 'knees up' is a more old-fashioned term for a party. People may use this in a light-hearted way. It could well involve dancing. If you are invited to one of these, you may need to be aware of the below terms:

'BYOB' means 'bring your own bottle'. In the UK, it is common for the party host to ask guests to bring their own drinks. You might see BYOB written on the invitation.

'It's your round!'. In a UK café or pub, it is common for small groups of friends to take it in turns to buy a round of drinks for everyone at the table. In a large group, this may not be practical - people may decide to buy their own or split into smaller rounds. If you don't want to take part or can't afford to, it is perfectly acceptable to say so and buy your own.

These other terms of social slang might be useful:

To 'fancy' someone is to find that person attractive, e.g., 'He just smiled. I think he fancies you'.

If you fancy him too, you could 'ask him out', which is to ask him to go on a date with you.

'Chat up' is to flirt with someone, e.g., 'She was chatting me up at the party'.

'Snog' means to kiss passionately, e.g., 'Oh dear. My dad and mum were snogging at their anniversary party. I didn't know where to look'.

'Chin-wag' means a talk or gossip with friends, e.g. 'Fancy a chin-wag?' In this context, 'fancy' means 'would you like'.
Food slang
Different areas of the UK can be well known for regional dishes of food. They might now be available widely across the UK (and even the world) but they remain associated with the place of origin. Melton Mowbray in Lincolnshire is synonymous with the 'pork pie', Cornwall with the 'pasty', and Lancashire with 'hot pot'. Confusingly, different regions also call the same food and drink items by different names:

'Barm cake', 'cob', 'bap', or 'batch' is a bread roll.

'Cuppa' or 'brew' is a cup of tea.

'Fry-up' or 'full English' is a hearty fried breakfast, usually with eggs, bacon, sausages, baked beans, grilled tomatoes and toast.

'Sunday roast' is a popular Sunday meal, which usually includes roast meat with roast potatoes, carrots, gravy and perhaps a Yorkshire pudding (puffy, savoury baked batter).

'Brekkie' is breakfast.

'Tea' usually means a cup of tea, but in some parts of the UK, generally the north, it also means the evening meal. How confusing. To add to this, 'afternoon tea' is usually 'taken' in the afternoon and involves tea, cake and small sandwiches, but some people might just call this 'tea'. Are you keeping up?

'Supper', for some people, means their evening meal, while for others it could be a light snack afterwards or even before. Doubly confusing.

'Greasy spoon' is a café serving simple/unhealthy food, probably including a 'full English'.

'Gastropub' is a pub that specialises in food as well as drinks.

'Chippy' is a fish-and-chip shop.

'Spuds' or 'tatties' are potatoes.
Financial slang
'Quid' is a pound sterling. If something costs £1, you may be asked for a quid; the word doesn't change in the plural, so £50 is fifty quid (not 'quids').

'Skint' is lacking money, e.g., 'I can't come to the restaurant, as I'm skint this week'.

'Minted' means rich, e.g., 'It was my birthday last week and I got some money off my family, so I am minted now'.

'Splashing out' means spending a lot of money.

'That's as cheap as chips' is very cheap.

'That costs a bomb' means it is too expensive.

'That's a rip-off' means that something is not worth the price.

'Cough up!' is slang for 'Pay your share of the bill'.
Cockney rhyming slang
Just to throw some more confusion in, these expressions use rhymes to hide another meaning. Beginning in London's East End during the 19th century, Cockney rhyming slang was originally a way for local people to share secrets and ideas without others understanding. Now, people across the UK often use rhyming slang for comic effect. Here are some examples:

'Apples and pears' means stairs.

'You're having a giraffe!' 'You're having a laugh!' which means: 'You're joking!'.

A 'dog and bone' is a telephone. 'He called me on the old dog and bone this morning'.

'Mince-pies' rhymes with eyes. 'I've forgotten my spectacles and my mince pies aren't what they used to be'.

In some cases, the rhyming word has been dropped over time, which can make it a bit harder to understand. For example:

'Use your loaf' means 'use your head', that is, be sensible. 'Loaf' used to be loaf of bread, which rhymes with head.

'Let's have a butcher's' is another way of saying 'Let me have a look'. This was originally butcher's hook to rhyme with look.

If someone asks you to 'stop telling porkies', she's asking you to stop lying. 'Porkies' was 'porky pies', which rhymes with lies.

We hope this guide helps those of you planning to visit the UK. Don't worry about the confusing and weird and wacky slang you might hear. New words and expressions are invented and used all the time and this article is nowhere near definitive. People will be impressed and surprised if you pick up on intricate slang expressions right away or even at all, and if you use them in the right situation. These expressions are fun and often lighthearted. They should certainly not 'give you the collywobbles' (make you nervous) at the thought of 'dropping a clanger' (getting something really wrong.) Good luck, chuck.
Find out more about living and studying in the UK.

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'You're having a giraffe!?' A starter guide to UK slang

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Are you moving to the UK for study or work? The British Council's Sophie Cannon explains some of the weird and wonderful words and phrases you might encounter. 'Hiya, mate, fancy a cuppa and a chin-wag?' 'I can't. Sorry, pal. I'm skint - so gutted!'

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The editors of the Guardian style guide write about language usage and abusage

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Mind your language | Media | The Guardian

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The editors of the Guardian style guide write about language usage and abusage

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English language, pronunciation, language evolution

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It is a division as entrenched and as bitter as the split between Brexit backers and EU Remainers - though in this case, the issue is truly personal. Do you pronounce the word "scone" to rhyme with "cone", or to rhyme with "gone"?

To those in the latter group, it is a posh affectation to use a long vowel for this staple item of afternoon tea. By contrast, those in the former group believe they are merely following a logical extension of the pronunciation of the word cone by adding an s as a prefix.

The example of scone's different pronunciations underscores the highly varied nature of Britain's complex, shifting patterns of speech, and comes as the nation celebrates English Language Day and Shakespeare's birthday on Sunday. It also marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Daniel Jones's English Pronouncing Dictionary, which tracks how spoken English has varied in terms of geography and over time.

In fact, the way you pronounce scone says far less about your class and much more about your geographical origins - for, according to "The Great Scone Map", produced by Cambridge University academics, its pronunciation follows a discernible pattern across Britain and Ireland. Those who rhyme it with gone predominate in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the north of England. Those who rhyme with cone dominate in southern Ireland and the Midlands. The rest of the country is a mixture of the two pronunciations.

And, just to complicate the matter, there is a third pronunciation available for the word - in the form of the village of Scone in Scotland, which is pronounced "skoon".

"It is not a matter of being posh, or thinking you are posh, if you pronounce scone as in cone," says phonetics expert Professor Jane Setter of the University of Reading, co-editor of the English Pronouncing Dictionary. "It is more a matter of where you grew up. By and large, the pronunciation that rhymes with gone is more common, however."

"Our language continually reshapes itself," she says. "New words appear. In addition, pronunciations of existing words alter. The word trap used to be pronounced more like 'trep', for example. Similarly pat was pronounced more like 'pet'. Changes like these have been tracked in our dictionary for a century now - though very often when we detect changes, we really don't understand why they have taken place."

Consider the words poor and pour. "In the past they were pronounced differently and still are in some areas," says Setter. "However, as time has passed, more and more people, myself included, have come to pronounce them in the same way - as in the word 'pore'. In phonetics, it is called a merger, but we don't always know why it has taken place in some areas of Britain and not in other parts of the country."

Other entries in the dictionary have been pronunciations that have virtually disappeared from the modern world. The word calibre - as in the quality of a person's character - is now pronounced as "KAL-ih-ber". "Fifty years ago, you would have been far more likely to pronounce it as 'ka-LEE-ber'," said Setter.

An even more striking illustration is provided in England by the word "arm". In 1950 most people living to the south-west of a line drawn between London and Birmingham - as well as pockets in Lancashire and in Northumberland - pronounced the "r" in "arm". The vast majority of those living outside these areas did not. Today virtually everyone in England now pronounces arm without the "r" - though people in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland still use it.

"This latter trend has become quite pronounced," adds Setter. "A similar pattern has been noted with the word 'square' and also with 'near'. Essentially, in England, we no longer pronounce these words with an 'r' in them either. We say something that is more like 'squih' and 'nih' today."

The tendency to enunciate the letter "r" everywhere it appears in the spelling of a word is known as a rhotic accent and it is typified by people from Scotland and Ireland. However the use of the rhotic "r" was once more widespread in England, particularly in the south-west, but this has slowly disappeared.

Similarly the pronunciation of the letter "t" in words like metal is disappearing and is being replaced by glottal stops, in which a stop sound is made by rapidly closing the vocal cords. In this way, the word butter has ended up with a pronunciation like "bu'er".

In a similar fashion, the pronunciation of "th" inside a word is disappearing and is being replaced by a "v" or "f" - to give us pronunciations like "muvver" or "bruvver" or even "bovvered" - the word so beloved of Catherine Tate's schoolgirl character Lauren.

In fact, some experts believe that in 50 to 100 years the use of "th" in popularly spoken English will have disappeared. "The idea horrifies some English language teachers but at the end of the day we have to accept that words and their pronunciation are flexible and changeable," says Setter.

"They are not fixed entities to be enshrined in stone."

"One of the most profound influences is undoubtedly the London accent, which has a noticeable glottal stop," she says . "It is the language of the capital, after all, so it is certainly going to affect the southern part of Britain. And you can trace the spread of the glottal stop and other features of the London accent moving westward along the M4 over time. Correspondingly, the rhotic "r" of the Berkshire accent has been lost over the years."

And that is the crucial point, she adds. "Language changes - and for a variety of reasons. Incomers can affect it. Those who we perceive as being prestige figures or groups can affect it. There are plenty of reasons.

Setter concludes: "There is all sorts of discussion about how English might change over the years - and the truth is that we really don't know exactly what is going to happen."

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Do you pronounce 'scone' to rhyme with 'cone' or 'gone'? It depends where you're from

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It is a division as entrenched and as bitter as the split between Brexit backers and EU Remainers - though in this case, the issue is truly personal. Do you pronounce the word "scone" to rhyme with "cone", or to rhyme with "gone"?