“Berk” was a popular playground insult in my day. A kid says something stupid in class? Berk. Someone falls over their own feet during a game of “it”? Berk. It was a wonderful word to say and still is; filled with satisfying plosives and tame enough that kids can get away with it… right?
As it turns out, we couldn’t be more wrong. We should have learned by now not to trust London lingo. There’s usually something hidden behind the innocent facade, and “berk” is no different. Like many great London-isms, “berk” comes from cockney rhyming slang.
If you’re new to London, you might not be so familiar with the strange cockney slang. It’s pretty basic: a rhyming phrase is used in place of a word. The part that actually rhymes gets discarded, shortening the phrase to a single unrelated word, confusing future generations, foreign and domestic tourists.
When I was a child I was regularly told off for telling “porkies”. The term comes from cockney the rhyming phrase “pork pies”, meaning “lies”. You can see how it works and why the rest of the world is baffled. Cockney rhyming sounds like innocent fun, until you discover our insult “berk” comes from the phrase “Berkshire Hunt”. Now what could possibly rhyme with that?
That’s right, ladies and gents and mums and dads, that innocent word for idiot is slang for the world’s most controversial swear word: cunt. That puts the previous schoolyard examples in a different light, eh? Some might call it an overreaction to call a child tying their shoelaces a cunt…
As with many words, its usage has changed and the original meaning has been long forgotten. Berk now stands alone as a tame insult. We’re all okay to use it and we at Felix are really hoping for a revival. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as an insult that no one understands. So next time you’re really angry with someone. let’s say your boss or a loved one you can’t afford to piss off, let rip a righteous “Berk!”. What you really mean is just between you, me and old London Town.
The post Little-known London: The Surprising Backstory of the Word “Berk” appeared first on Felix Magazine.
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