Milsurp After Hours

Here are some common Royal Navy-specific words and expressions.

Adrift To be late

Anchor-faced Somebody who extremely enthusiastic about their career in the Royal Navy

Bezzy Best mate

Bone Stupid

Bootneck Royal Marine

Chad Valley A piece of equipment that is generally not very good, or the lesser quality of what is available on the market

Crabby Dirty

Crabfat Somebody serving in the RAF

Dhobie Washing (as in laundry)

Dhobie dust Washing powder

Dose STDs/STIs

Flap Panic

Gash Rubbish (can be used for litter or something that doesn't work very well)

Gen Genuine - but also used to brief someone, or meaning study something in detail, as in 'gen up' or 'all the gen'

Heads Toilets

Jenny A member of the WRENs

Matelot Sailor

Minging To be drunk

NATO standard Tea or coffee with milk and two sugars

Necky To be particularly cheeky

Oppo A Royal Navy colleague

Pinged To be seen, typically when not wanting to be

Pit A sailor's bed

Roof Rats Aircraft handlers

Run ashore A night out – usually involving alcohol

Sad on To be unhappy or disappointed

Shippers An onboard colleague

Shitehawk A Seagull

Sprog A child

Sun dodger A member of the submarine service

Thin out To leave or to end one's day in work/duty

Tot A Rum measure

Wet A drink of something (tea usually)

Winger A mate

Woolly pully A service issued woolly jumper

What does Scran mean?

Scran, which almost everybody who has served in the Armed Forces will instantly know to mean food, actually has a deeper meaning.

Its origin comes from the Royal Navy practice of supplementing sailors' diets with additional portions of Sultanas, Currants, Raisins and Nuts – which can be shortened to 'SCRAN'.

According to @OnThisDayRN on Twitter, those supplements were delivered to ship with big SCRAN labels painted on the outside.

Guz Devonport

Honky Fid Hong Kong

Pompey Portsmouth

Singers Singapore

Interesting vocabulary the British Navy had. Tristan Jones in his book Heart of Oak listed a pretty good number of the slang words....including some R rated ones.

I recognise a lot of those words from my RAF days.
Regards
Peter.