Mate. Never Bruv or Bro or such like. And not often mate alone either. Usually my mate Micky or my mate Mike.
Bruv is multicultural London English. And is awful.
Online is telling me it is derived from shortening the cockney pronunciation of brother ("bruvver"), but that the shortening was done by people who were mostly from lower-income predominantly-black neighbourhoods. Cockneys wouldn't say "bruv" but the word did in a way originate from the cockney accent.
Never in all my life have I heard a Cockney say 'bruv.' Nor have I ever heard an actual roadman (i.e. drug dealer) outside the M25 say it. 'Mush,' 'chavvy,' 'mate,' 'boss,' 'bro,' maybe a 'dude' or 'fam,' but never 'bruv.'
I believe my own ears, and 50 years of living in the same area as WinkyNurdo, and coming from several generations of cockneys, over your 'I believe my internet sources'.
Bruv was never a cockney term.
Bruv always felt like a British Asian/British African/British Caribbean thing. Nit sure who would have used it first tho
But most British slang is typically attributed to the Caribbean community more than the other 2
I live in literally the poorest town in the UK, don't talk to me about ordinary people. I know the difference between working class and dole scrounging chavs which this place has in fucking droves.
You strike me as one of those middle-class aspirants who think they're a good person because they rebuke people for calling others chavs when you don't have to deal with the fucking things.
Of course and its not at all anything to do with classism everyone is just sensitive or enables all bad behaviour because everyone who i deemed a chav (usually someone who dresses a certain way speaks a certain way and lives on a council estate they automatically call them a chav) is of course a criminal.
We can’t prove this without recordings of every use in history and details of all involved.
Bruv was certainly being used among black Londoners by 1982, usually in places where Brother would have been used at some earlier point. I personally didn’t hear it in groups of white Londoners for about 30 years after that, though of course that doesn’t mean that it was literally never used. However, treating it as trad Cockney is surely wrong.
Hi, white, south coast, fifty-something brit. We've always said Bruv, but only to refer to our actual brothers. Same with sis for sisters. I'll get the attention of my brothers by calling 'oi bruv', but would never call anyone else bruv. Perhaps OP thinking it's a white thing comes from this. We acquired a bunch of cockney stuff down here, so it might be related, but it is solely a family thing.
Hello u/sloppypooisyum! Welcome to r/AskABrit!
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