Hey!

Recently there has been a craze on twitter and various social medias to define “cheeky nandos”. Apparently an American was wondering what it was and the British have been trying to define the term with little success. It is now my turn, hopefully being an American will help 🙂 Let’s start off by explaining that Nandos is a restaurant that serves loads of chicken dishes. It is really popular and pretty similar to Red Robin in terms of relatively cheap restaurants that young people love. Cheeky is a term that the English use to describe being “naughty” or “pushing your luck a bit”. For example, Urban Dictionary has a good example:

“Student says: miss, I like your sweat patches, I think they look nice against that lovely brown dress you are wearing today…
Teacher says: ‘don’t be so cheeky’. ”

I have been asking around about what this term cheeky nandos means and where it came from; the results show that no one can clearly define it. One person describes cheeky nandos as “something you do with the lads (AKA the bros) and take pictures and put them on Instagram with the ‘ok’ emoji” and that it is the “spawn of some of the most irritating people known to man”. A person who works at Nandos describes it as “when you and the lads are having a bit of banter in town and your mate is like ‘I’m hungry let’s go Greggs’ but then your like ‘nah man not feeling a pasty lets go somewhere else’ and then your top mate, probably called Gaz, is like ‘oi lads let’s go for a cheeky nandos’ and your like oh Gaz you’re a ledge”. Basically, it seems to be the special form of bros who mob around, are rather full of themselves, and feel the need to share that they are out with the bros to seem cool. Nandos, in my mind, has become a restaurant that is popular because of the hype and name recognition from these lads and the term cheeky nandos. Cheeky Nandos is a concept that makes little sense, but it a word that has been adopted anyway. No one can define it because it doesn’t have a proper meaning.

There was another word that I wanted to cover for you all, as I have been trying to understand it since I got to England. Banter, which was used above, is a key term in English youth society. Once again I interviewed people to find out what they thought it was. One guy said “Banta is stimulating conversation in which good quality chat is consistent. What may seem like having a laugh to a passer-by could well be in fact bants or banter. Banter is not bullying! To supply good banter is a key aspect of most British friendship groups. To supply top-shelf banter carries great respect”. Banter seems to be integral in British friendships and general life which is very interesting to me as I had never heard the term before I came to England. Basically, banter is just a super sarcastic conversation, often directed at someone. This is why I have often thought light bullying was happening, but when I confronted it, the whole group, including the target, claimed it was just banter and not to be taken seriously. Being able to take banter is just as important as giving it. Taking banter too seriously or offensively is not okay. This concept has made the English very immune to harsh words and does not affect their pride like it might an American. Banter offers some hilarious conversations and is really worth accepting and participating in.

I hope these terms are a little cleared up 🙂

Holly xx