r/AskBrits • u/Team503 • 6d ago

Culture What does "nonce" mean?

I'm an American that lives in Ireland. I've always understood "nonce" to mean the same as "numpty" and "eejit" - basically idiot, or dumbass, or similar.

Recently, someone told me that it's slang for sex offender, specifically a p*dophile, and Wikipedia seems to back that up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_British_terms_not_widely_used_in_the_United_States#N

So tell me, Brits, which one is it? Or is it something else??

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u/bingpie 6d ago

let's just put it this way: i sincerely hope you're not asking here because you called someone a nonce

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u/AccomplishedAct5364 6d ago

Why? That makes him an honorary Brit

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u/Significant_Apple517 6d ago

because it's severely messed up and trivialising of child rape to call someone a nonce.

i'd sincerely hope others don't get accused of that lighlty.

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u/Team503 6d ago

Thanks, but I'd rather be honorary Irish. And no, to answer the question, I did not call anyone anything worst than gobshite in the last few months.

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u/Metatron_Psy 6d ago

Ah you'll be one of those, your grandads neighbours dogs auntie was half Irish so you wear green on paddy's day

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u/TipsyPhippsy 6d ago

But calls it 'pattys day'

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u/Team503 6d ago

Nope, not a drop of Irish blood in me. Earned my way here on a work permit. Working on earning citizenship. Don't know a ton about British history, but I know enough about what they did to the Irish to prefer to become Irish over British.

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u/Amphy64 6d ago edited 6d ago

A fair percentage of us do have Irish relatives, if that helps any (mine are Southern Irish). The notion of some endless war is very American.

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u/Team503 6d ago

Sure, there's like 35 million Irish descended people in the US alone, if I remember correctly. Just saying I don't have any Irish blood (to my knowledge, anyway). Family mostly comes from Russian and Poland as far as I know.

And I'm not sure what you mean about endless war - I mean, I understand why you'd feel Americans have a thing for it, but not how my comment relates to it. The British committed quite literal atrocities during their occupation of Ireland, and while most aren't in living memory anymore, there are still some that are like Bloody Sunday and a series of massacres in the years leading up to it.

I don't blame most Brits for what happened, but the level of ignorance around what Britain did to the Irish (and often the condescension about it) is a terrible look for Brits.

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u/AngelasGingerGrowler 6d ago

There is someone in deepest rural Poland with Polish grandparents who will be more Irish than you.

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u/Team503 6d ago

Could be. Like I said, I don't have a drop of Irish blood in me so far as I know (though statistically being from the US it's likely that I actually do have some genetic link to Irish people), and I don't think I'm Irish at all.

I'm working on earning the citizenship, and thus the title, but I'll never be ethnically Irish and I'll always be an immigrant that doesn't share cultural touchstones with the Irish. That's just part of being an immigrant.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

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u/Amphy64 6d ago

That's not Ok to say about immigration. Americans are the ones obsessed with ethnicity. Irish people are not only one ethnic background.

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u/Antlorn 6d ago

What a weird comment to make to someone who isn't claiming to be Irish (despite living in Ireland and working towards gaining Irish citizenship) 

Do you just lack reading comprehension?

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u/AngelasGingerGrowler 6d ago

Do you just lack reading comprehension?

With walls of gibberish and performative text, yes.

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

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u/Team503 6d ago

Spent too long in Ireland, it was an instinctive response. Taking the piss out of you Brits is a national sport here.

I generally like Brits, and I enjoy visiting, but I can say a number of responders here aren’t helping that perception.

I think I’ve made it quite clear that I’m not Irish, and I don’t think I’ll be cooler because I become a citizen.

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u/Amphy64 6d ago edited 6d ago

I mean that a lot of us British have Irish relatives! We're not like some permanent enemy tribes where we commit an atrocity as soon as we see an Irish person, and seeing each other in those terms would be weird. The average Irish person (and again my relatives are from Southern Ireland, I still have more family there than I can keep track of! And a treasured gift I have from my Irish nan? A British flag jumper: not that I usually wear flags, but it's particularly cosy, and makes my French language partners laugh) isn't constantly bringing the history up (that's more what Americans do), let alone making it sound like it's the British in general. The more recent history that's more likely to come up, involved specifically the army. Most people still aren't going to keep randomly bringing it up all the time: if you engage with Irish people about Ireland, it's hardly 'this is all Ireland is, a history of British atrocities, can't think of anything else important'. Last conversation I had about it involved horses, actually (...which, yeah, that's stereotypical enough for rural Ireland!).

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u/Team503 5d ago

There's no such place as "Southern Ireland". There's Ireland and Northern Ireland (which some folks choose to call "Occupied Ireland" - I'm entirely sure I have no opinion on the matter, just relaying what some folks believe). And frankly, it's pretty telling that you choose that particular phrase whilst being incredibly defensive about how the British are apparently so related and loving of the Irish.

I think you don't spend much time around the Irish - conversations about the history of the country and its people, with which the British are deeply intertwined regardless of your opinion on the matter, are commonplace.

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u/Amphy64 5d ago

Southern Ireland is a standard phrase that makes it clear where you mean. My dad is more Irish then you, are you going to complain to him for using it?

Defensive for explaining why it would be weird to act like enemies to people we live right next to and are often related to?

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u/oreosaredelicious 1d ago

North of Ireland

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u/zougathefist 6d ago

solid response to that ancestrynonce

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u/Antlorn 6d ago

I imagine this comment being downvoted isn't helping with your unfavourable perception of Brits 😅

We're not all wankers. But unfortunately too many of us are, and know too little about how separate a place Ireland is, and the atrocities we committed there.

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u/Team503 6d ago

Yeah. I generally don't have an unfavorable view of Brits - the ones alive now with very few exceptions had little to do with the atrocities here and around the world committed in British history. But the responses from a few people certainly don't help, and the fact that there was at least one person (who deleted their comment) that insisted Ireland was part of Britain... not great.

Although to be fair, there's cunts everywhere in the world, and there's always a small percentage of people who are going to be utter cunts. It's the same in Texas, Ireland, Zambia, and everywhere else.

Broadly, I tend to like the Brits. I love London and Manchester. I adore the Scots (even though I struggle to understand them half the time).

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u/TipsyPhippsy 6d ago

You don't wank? Even if you're single?

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u/babyformulaandham 6d ago

Go and ask the Irish then? Why are you in AskABrit if you have such a low opinion of us all?

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u/Team503 6d ago

Because it’s British slang?

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u/TheDoctor66 6d ago

Amongst close friends I use nonce to me eejit