Trim the festive norman aft: a guide to submarine slang

Perhaps more than any other branch of the British military, the Royal Navy's submarine arm is home to some of the most inventive – not to say obscure – slang. During his week aboard HMS Triumph, Stephen Moss picked up a few of the words most often used by submariners. Here is a selection: dit story, tale, film spin a dit tell a story dripping complaining (usually in a light-hearted way) manking moaning, dripping threaders pissed off harry threaders very pissed off buffs buck up rack bed rack out go to bed bagged out asleep snorting both diesels snoring shake wake-up call terror shake menacing wake-up call scran food (derived from sultanas, currants, raisons, nuts) scran spanners knife and fork snorker sausage fat pill bread roll norman chicken aquatic norman fish festive norman turkey Russian norman chicken kiev elephant's footprints, nellie's wellies spam fritters shit on a raft kidneys in gravy on toast yellow peril kippers/smoked haddock slide butter trim pass trim the slide aft pass the butter wet drink (usually tea) goof admiring scenery skeg admiring women divs attractive woman dib-dobs, klebbies, ickies, scruntons generic words for foreign currency oppo friend skimmer, target surface ship bobblehead diver binbag, back'aftie marine engineer heads toilets garbo garbage ejector gash rubbish oxygen thief trainee sea rider guest on the boat dabber warfare officer wrecker mechanic pusser logistics officer bomb shop weapons storage compartment harmony time leave jolly stopover on shore diddly-dossing pretending to work fleet move in an orderly fashion clagg connect gobstick internal telephone heave action/drill wibble crazy go wibble go crazy after too long at sea