British Slang for When Things Go Wrong (Colloquial 3.3)

Katie asks for the one English word that covers feeling tired, something breaking and something not working properly. Tom gets it in about two seconds: "Knackered." From there the two of them work through everything that can go wrong in a day — a cock up, the shit hitting the fan, dropping a clanger, going arse over tit — with Katie reaching for the polite version and Tom, reliably, offering a stronger one. Fair warning: some of the language in this episode is genuinely rude.

What you'll hear in this episode

The conversation comes in two halves, split by a pronunciation drill. In the first half, Katie sets up situations and lets Tom fill in the expression. She describes organising something badly and pauses; Tom says "Cock up." She describes her boss finding out; Tom says "Shit will hit the fan." Katie then points out how visual that image is — "Think of a fan that blows air all around your room..." — and Tom replies, flatly, "A horrible thought."

There's a nice slip when they reach the near-miss expressions. Katie offers "a close shape", Tom quietly corrects her with "A close shave", and she takes it: "Shave, sorry yes, a close shave or a close call."

The second half is where the register question really comes out. Tom admits he'd just say "I've fucked up" for almost anything, calls it "a very multi-purpose term", and says of dropping a clanger: "Although I wouldn't normally use that one personally." Katie's explanation is short — "That's because he likes to swear" — and Tom's is more useful: he associates it with his parents, "it's slightly older generation". He also throws in two the workbook doesn't list, "a right hash" and "I've made a right dog's dinner of that". When Katie asks whether he'd say tits up to his boss, the answer is immediate: "Normally not."

Quick facts

Episode	Zapp! English Colloquial 3.3 – Incidents & Accidents
Episode number	3.3
Pack	Colloquial 3
Level	3
Duration	13 minutes 11 seconds
Workbook	Included in the all-in-one pack

What you'll learn

The real lesson here isn't the expressions themselves — it's how offensive each one is, and that is something dictionaries handle badly. The workbook grades every phrase 1, 2 or 3, and the conversation shows you why the grading matters. Pear-shaped is one "you could use pretty much anywhere". Tits up means exactly the same thing and would cost you a job interview. Pete Tong sits in between. Learning the meanings without the grading is how learners get into trouble.

You'll also hear how these phrases behave grammatically. Cock up and fuck up take an intensifier — "a right cock up", "a complete fuck up" — and Katie flags that pattern directly. Knackered is used for objects, not just people, which surprises learners who only know it as "exhausted". And there's a useful warning about head over heels: Tom reaches for it as the polite version of arse over tit, and Katie explains that in English it now only really means falling in love. The physical falling-over version is "to go flying".

Between the two conversation halves, the pronunciation sections prompt you with a situation, give you the answer, then ask you to repeat at the beep — so you practise saying "The shit will hit the fan" and "I made a right cock up" with natural stress rather than word by word.

Vocabulary from this unit

The workbook glossary grades each expression: 1 is fine with most people, 2 is for people you know well, 3 may upset or offend.

knackered (2) – broken, no longer working. Tom's example: his car.
a cock up / to cock something up (3) – to do something badly, to make it go wrong.
to mess something up (1) – the safe, all-purpose version.
to drop a clanger (1) – to make a mistake, usually by saying something that upsets someone.
to go pear shaped (1) – to go wrong.
to go tits up (3) – to go wrong (slang – strong).
to go Pete Tong (2) – to go wrong (slang).
the shit hits the fan (2) – there is a bad result.
to go flying (1) – to slip or fall over.
to go arse over tit (3) – to slip or fall over.
a narrow escape / a lucky escape / a close call (1) – something bad very nearly happened.

What's in the workbook

The workbook for this unit contains the full transcript of both halves of the conversation, so you can read back anything you missed while Tom was talking over the top of Katie. After that come the Meaning and Pronunciation sections written out, the summary, and the Extra Materials.

The glossary is the part worth keeping. Fourteen expressions, each with a plain definition and the 1–3 rudeness grade, plus the note that grade 3 is the sort of thing you should never say to your mother-in-law. Practice Exercise 1 asks you to assign the grades yourself before you check them — a better test of whether you've understood the register than any translation exercise. Practice Exercise 2 gives you five short situations (a car nearly hitting you, telling everyone the wrong start time, falling down three steps) and asks you to match the right expression to each. Answers for both are printed at the back.

This workbook is part of the Zapp! English all-in-one pack at €39, which covers every episode across all the courses.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Common questions

Is this episode suitable for the classroom?

Probably not without editing. Two of the expressions are graded 3 in the glossary and one is marked vulgar. It's aimed at adult learners who want to understand what they actually hear in a pub or an office kitchen.

Are the conversations scripted?

The conversations are unscripted — Katie and Tom are genuinely thinking of expressions as they go, which is why Katie says "I wasn't thinking of that one either" twice. The teaching sections that set up tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

Which expressions are safe to use at work?

The ones graded 1: to mess something up, to drop a clanger, to go pear shaped, to go flying, and the three near-miss phrases. Tom's own answer on saying tits up to a boss was "Normally not."

Do I need the earlier episodes first?

No. Each unit works on its own topic. This one is Level 3 and assumes you're comfortable following two native speakers talking at natural speed and interrupting each other.

What does "Pete Tong" have to do with anything?

It's offered in the conversation as the milder alternative to tits up, and the glossary lists it as slang meaning to go wrong, graded 2.

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