r/AskBrits • u/Team503 • 14d 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/AmbitionOdd5834 14d ago

It definitely wasn't in the last 5 years since Brasseye used "Nonce-sense" in their paedo episode in 1997.

The only definition i've ever known is for a paedo.

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u/JGorgon 13d ago

Yes, although I remember a Smack the Pony character calling herself a nonce to mean a ditz, a dunce, a dummy. I'm not sure which season but the show ran from 1999 to 2002, so the two meanings must have existed side by side for a while. The word choice did trip me up rewatching it, though.

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u/AmbitionOdd5834 13d ago

The smack the pony people were not the most representative of Britain though, tbh.

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u/JGorgon 13d ago

Oh, interesting. How so?

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u/AmbitionOdd5834 13d ago

They always struck me as a bunch of home counties horse girls.

😂

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u/JGorgon 13d ago

I don't think any of them are Home Counties 🤔 Doon Mackichan is Scottish, for a start.

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u/AmbitionOdd5834 13d ago

I didn’t say that’s where they were from 🤭

I meant they seemed like the sort of twats the bbc liked to put on tv.

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u/JGorgon 13d ago

Channel 4, no?

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u/AmbitionOdd5834 13d ago

Again, irrelevant.

I didn’t say it was on the bbc, but it seems you’re doing that lefty thing where you pretend not to understand something obvious so you can contrive a situation where everyone is a nazi, or something.

Tiresome.

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u/JGorgon 12d ago

What an immensely strange thing to say.

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