What, in Brittish slang, is a "yob"?

Answer 1

It is Cockney 'Back slang' for boy. This slang was also known as Butcher's Slang and I can confess that it took me nearly 40 years to find out how it originated. You see the Butcher used to write his different meats and prices on the shop window with white wash. It might show 'Rib of Beef £2 per lb'. If a shopper asked for a Rib of Beef, the butcher would look at the window from the inside and see the writing in reverse. He would call out to his assistant 'Feeb fo bir' and so on. The reverse slang continued to gain in order that especially young people could talk about things that the older generation would not understand. If you asked for the price of something and it was Four pounds, the shopkeeper would say 'a rouf'. Incidentally, one of the most interesting back slang phrases comes from the US. It was a New York Irish emigrant family called the Muldoons. When they did a burglary they would reverse their name in back slang and write it on the walls or windows. Noodlum. This soon became Hoodlums with criminals becoming known as Hoods. Sorry for going on but I could not Pots..........................

Answer 2

Yobbo or yob is a slang term for an uncouth blue collar individual or thug. The word derives from a back-slang reading of the word "boy" (boy or boyo reversed becomes yob or — slightly modified — yobbo).

In Britain, as the word 'yob' came out of the London back-slang and into more general English usage, it and latterly, 'yobbo' have meant 'working class, adolescent, male person'. Within his own culture, he was not necessarily seen as uncouth, though a person writing about him rather than speaking of him was likely to be of another social class and prone to seeing him as loutish.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yobbo

Answer 3

Me dad used to call uz yobbos when we dressed like bums and didn't comb our hair.

Answer 4

"A rowdy, aggressive, or violent young man" Also boy spelled backwards.

Answer 5

a hooligan (aggressive young man)