Just came across this Wikipedia entry:
List of British words not widely used in the United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_words_not_widely_used_in_the_United_States
To me the selection seems pretty accurate and common in on-line usage, so maybe worth sharing.
Very interesting. More than half those phrases are in common use in Australia and I use about 75% of them, perhaps as a consequence of spending 7 years in the Old Dart, …eh, England to you, sport. The origins suggested surprised me a bit in some cases. I’d swear I picked up ‘chancer’ from Irish not English friends. I also thought ‘Bob’s your uncle’ was Australian in origin, rather like ‘she’ll be apples.’ A few phrases seemed to be missing; I’ve never heard anybody in the US called an old boiler or a dork.
I now realise why Americans tend to find my speech so, eh …, exotic. Add Australianisms to that list and you have quite a vocabulary difference. Of course, I understand most of what the Americans are saying which can be a useful advantage sometimes. But I still find it strange to call a handbag a purse.
My grandfather is from Ireland, so I grew up with hearing a lot of those. Some are foreign to me and extremely funny. I am also a big fan of English Literature, so I guess that is why I know a lot of them. Thanks for that, that was very interesting and useful. I am going to have to use a lot of those in my every day vocabulary.
So, when you guys call me “WC”, you are really referring to a toilet and not my name? 
Wow. There were quite a few that I hadn’t
heard before. It’s interesting how British
phraseology can be just different enough
to require a bit of context for Americans
to suss it out. It took a while for me to get
used to hearing about people “standing as
a Tory” instead of “running as a Republican”.
It probably doesn’t need to be said, but I’ll say it anyway. Many of the examples on that page are rarely used, are antiquated or are very colloquial.
Hey, I’m a “spod”!
“Old boiler”, no. “Dork”, yes. Heard that one since childhood, and it’s still used. Not a nice word.
I wonder if the meaning is differently shaded.
In the US, it’s akin to “nerd” or “geek”, though
often without the accompanying intelligence.
Elsewhere, I think it’s like “schmuck”.
Havin bad flashbacks?
As a reference, it’s OK if it’s a superset of what’s common. And I’ve seen a lot of these in the wild on the intertubes. It’s always hard to appreciate the alien force of one’s own slang. Things like naff, chinwag, on the doss, knackered, cock-up, are Martian to most Americans.
Someone in another thread here just wrote me that he “talks cobblers to his dog”. Which is what sent me running for the slangtionary.
I guess Wombat’s 75% score makes him a dodgy old gaffer. 
Actually, they used other words for me for the most part. Mostly unprintable in mixed company. 
As far as the original meaning of “schmuck” goes, “dork” functions that way, too, at least in my region. “Doc, help me. I have some kind of dorkitis.”
People who know me well know that I use the work “dork” in my every day conversation. It’s almost like a term of endearment for me If it’s a word better left out of polite conversation, I’m in BIG trouble
Dodgy, yes. Somewhere in the area where gaffer meets geezer and codger, too. It’s a pretty large area.
I think I probably only use a few phrases frequently but I’d bet that phrases that are fading in Britain are still common in Australia. I haven’t been to Britain for nearly 30 years; I divide my time between Australia and the US now.
Yes, I forgot about that angle, and I think it’s a word better left used endearingly.
Thus the yiddish riddle:
Q. What’s the difference between a get and a bris?
A. With a get, you get rid of the whole shmuck!
Your attempts to keep this in the region of polite
company have baffled me. Are we talking about
a condition for which someone might need, say,
Viagara?
Or penicillin, yes.
“It burns when I Schmegel!”
Right. Same page, then. I did not
know of that usage in the US.
Might be northern Midwest.
Careful with that…it’s a surname, you know. 
Nice.