Do you speak bingo? Have you ever wondered what acronyms like WTG mean or where bingo rhymes come from? Thanks heavens, Winkipedia has an article about everything, right?
We all know that bingo is more than just a game. People get in fights if some unsuspecting newcomer (Got forbid!) dares take their lucky seat in the local bingo hall. Your sweet old granny can turn from the caring angel who always has a new knit scarf for you to a fierce beast just because Margery had the cheek to interrupt the main bingo session with her stupid sneezing.
And if you think that this happens only in the land-based clubs, think twice. We’ve heard newbies report feeling like outcasts in the online chat rooms of the bingo sites and being treated as if they were intruders. Shame, indeed. We really think these are isolated cases of undeserved rudeness. Probably the reason this is happening is that some bingo fans believe they belong to a special group or ideology so firmly, that sometimes things get out of hand.
Most bingo operators do their best to promote communication and adopt various techniques of building a loyal community where comradeship and kindness are basic values. Organising competitions such as “Pet of the Month”, “CM of the Week”, “Roomie of the Week” and chat games that require following the conversation, are just two examples of the social features of the online games. Communication in the chat is further encouraged by Chat Masters who lead the discussions, remind the players to buy tickets and act as mediators. Those chat rooms have a typical “slanguage” that looks like a Morse code if you are not familiar with the acronyms. This is where we can help. Read our basic guide on the most popular UK bingo vocabulary and never feel like a noob.
The first time I entered an online bingo chat I felt like a fossil. It was like my teenage daughter was writing some gibberish texts on her iPhone. I almost decided to close the window and never give bingo game another try, when one of the roomies wrote “bingomama301 welcome!” (I know, my nickname is as corny as it can possibly be.) This greeting felt kind of obliging and heart-warming at the same time. I replied and then I googled “chat language”. No kidding. I was that pathetic. Lucky you, you’ve got all the information with one click, heh? Don’t be so smug, I know you don’t know half of them. But I won’t tell. Below you’ve got the top 10 abbreviations that will give you a head-start in any bingo chat and will make you look more knowledgeable, for wink bingo extended bingo lingo list click here>>
Did you know The first known use of OMG was in 1917 in a letter to Winston Churchill from a 75-year-old admiral
Most of the online bingo rooms nowadays announce the numbers like this: “two and nine – twenty-nine” but you may have heard also: “twenty-nine – rise and shine”. The traditional British bingo calls are still a thing, even if they are used more rarely than before. Some of them have a very obvious origin. For example, the latter one simply rhymes with the number 29. Some numbers have as many as 8 or 9 different nicknames, but most of them have up to 4. If you wonder why, it’s probably because with the time going by the jokes, the references and the popular associations change. So in contrast to 29, there are other examples where the etymology of the call is not so obvious at first sight. Let’s explore together the different categories below. We are not going to include all the calls here because you can find a full list on many sites. What’s more interesting is the story behind the call. We present you the most peculiar ones.
88 – “Two Fat Ladies” | 55 – “Snakes Alive” | 80 – “Gandhi’s Breakfast”* |
4 – “Knock at the Door” | 5 – “Man Alive” | 23 – “Thee and Me”
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25 – “Duck and Dive” | 26 – “Pick and Mix” | 28 – “Over Weight”
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32 – “Buckle My Shoe” | 34 – “Ask for More” | 35 – “Jump and Jive”
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42 – “Winnie the Pooh” | 52 – “Danny La Rue” | 58 – “Make Them Wait”
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59 – “Brighton Line” | 66 – “Clickety Click” | 67 – “Made in Heaven”
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“The call of ‘two fat ladies’ in bingo is part of our heritage. What’s the alternative, ‘two generously proportioned people of either gender?’ It’s not very snappy.”
In 2003, the holiday camp operator Butlins made an attempt to replace some of the outdated rhymes from the 50′s with new ones that are more relevant to the modern day. They even hired a professor of popular culture to forge the new calls. The traditional rhyming slang was a mirror of the Postwar Britain, but these references are long forgotten. The professor had to come up with associations from the new millennium that mean something to the British players.
Thus 30 became Ali G and 32 was changed to the Jimmy Choo in honour of the popular shoe designer (and let’s not forget that Sex and the City was a big craze at that time..oh Carrie, we do miss you). J Lo’s Bum was immortalised in the rhyme for 71 and 7 got its name from David Beckham and his famous jersey. And although some of these are quite creative, they did not make it, did not turn into a norm and are now so rarely used that we can’t think of a single online operator that has chosen J Lo’s buttocks over the good old drum. Whatever you call the balls, it’s bingo and it will always be a favourite game of us Britons. I hope you became proficient bingo lingo speakers after reading this article and GLA!
* This article was researched and created by the team behind https://www.bestbingosites.co.uk. For more interesting topics on various bingo-related topics, please check out our site.
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