Harbone
How about "skank" or "skanky?"
It was my favorite word, for a while, back when I was still dating (mid 90s at the latest, really) to describe an attractive woman who seemed expensively unwholesome, as opposed to enticingly wicked. It was a fine line, but an alarming one too see crossed. Especially since it always caught me off guard to see such a sight and the woman whom I described with this very unflattering expression invariably misread my gaze and asked me to buy them a drink. It was a times like that I was very glad to be poor (although it was still humiliating!)
It also sort of expressed the opinon that someone had sacrificed a little too much for beauty. Like someone who had tried to be thin so desperately that they looked skeletal or someone who had had so many nose jobs their face was little more than two taught, tiny nostrils (a bit like an angry tiki carving, really.) I don't know what it meant in other parts of the world, but I've heard skank used in a lot of contexts.
I don't think it originally meant what my little crowd in Portland, OR ended up using it to mean.
It was my favorite word, for a while, back when I was still dating (mid 90s at the latest, really) to describe an attractive woman who seemed expensively unwholesome, as opposed to enticingly wicked. It was a fine line, but an alarming one too see crossed. Especially since it always caught me off guard to see such a sight and the woman whom I described with this very unflattering expression invariably misread my gaze and asked me to buy them a drink. It was a times like that I was very glad to be poor (although it was still humiliating!)
It also sort of expressed the opinon that someone had sacrificed a little too much for beauty. Like someone who had tried to be thin so desperately that they looked skeletal or someone who had had so many nose jobs their face was little more than two taught, tiny nostrils (a bit like an angry tiki carving, really.) I don't know what it meant in other parts of the world, but I've heard skank used in a lot of contexts.
I don't think it originally meant what my little crowd in Portland, OR ended up using it to mean.
In Scotland, a skank would be a completely unattractive girl who took no care of herself whatsoever, but was totally available to the local male population.... also known as the "local bicycle".
On a slightly more wholesome note, we have:
Hud yer wheesht - translation: hold your breath, meaning: be quiet
Couldn't care tuppence - don't care
Away an bile yer heid - translation: go boil your head, meaning: no way
That'll be right - meaning... wrong!
Away with the fairies - meaning, not quite seeing reality the same way the rest of us do
Mutton dresses as lamb - would be used to describe an older woman who still wore more revealing younger fashions, but in an unflattering way.
Minging would be something totally gross (like picking your nose)
Manky or clarty means dirty
There's bound to be a lot more when I think about it. Fun idea!
