Having access to cable tv, there are a lot of old programmes like The Sweeney, or Minder, where rhyming slang is used.
Examples the other day, the second of which I had to think about long enough to miss the next bit of the "plot".
'Ang on, he's movin' the Joanna...
And
So I was doin' the needful wiv a smarmy bubble...
Did/does anyone in real life ever talk like that? It's probably all some sort of cod Jamaican/American street talk now. I mean, like wow, man, that stuff just ain't hep.
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>>doin' the needful wiv a smarmy bubble.
I've never 'eard that one before Cc, and I know most common (as muck) cockerknee speek, like.
>>Did/does anyone in real life ever talk like that?
I very much doubt it - lunden aint what it used to be doncha know. Mayhap it's used in Enders now and again? Dunno though as I never Watchet.
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>> So I was doin' the needful wiv a smarmy bubble...
>>
>> Did/does anyone in real life ever talk like that? It's probably all some sort of
>> cod Jamaican/American street talk now. I mean, like wow, man, that stuff just ain't hep.
Smarmy bubble? No. Don't know that one. Doesn't make sense.
Soapy bubble? Yes. It means trouble. It makes sense.
Nobody in real life talks like that nowadays.
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Ah, maybe they made that bit up? They were dealing with some Greeks, so I took it to mean "bubble and squeak, Greek". Eventually.
I don't why I think that kind of slang is good fun and appealing in a light hearted way but today's is just stupid though. Perhaps in thirty years people will look back on the days of "savage" or, apparently, "Hundo p" with nostalgia.
I had to google those, by the way.
www.ef.com/blog/language/slang-words-you-need-to-know-in-2017/
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>> Smarmy bubble? No. Don't know that one. Doesn't make sense.
Intelligible to me. A bubble is a "bubble and squeak" = greek. Smarmy is either greasy and slimy and/or , ingratiating, sycophantic, fawning insincere like Uriah Heap
so its a slimy greek.
>> Nobody in real life talks like that nowadays.
Depends where you go, they certainly don't in Surrey, even in Spoons. They do in certain parts of London, Essex and the Medway towns. Its very easy to get rhyming slang wrong, both in terminology, application and use, making you look like a right Moby.
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Surely the original purpose of rhyming slang was to enable the East End villains to doguise the meaning of what they were saying from the police....
I must go now..my Chalfonts are playing up..or is my Fathers??
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>> Surely the original purpose of rhyming slang was to enable the East End villains to
>> doguise the meaning of what they were saying from the police....
that went well,
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I've met people who use bits of rhyming slang, often habitually, like pie and mash for slash or apples and pears for stairs. Never heard it used in more extended speech.
But then again I didn't live in East End.
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Joanna for piano is surely pretty standard slang?
Used jocularly when persuading someone to give us a tune.
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>> I've met people who use bits of rhyming slang, often habitually, like pie and mash
>> for slash or apples and pears for stairs. Never heard it used in more extended
>> speech.
>>
>> But then again I didn't live in East End.
You would be surprised. I bet you have used some. Every talked about "taking the Mickey" out of someone? or called someone a Berk?
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>> You would be surprised. I bet you have used some. Every talked about "taking the
>> Mickey" out of someone? or called someone a Berk?
I was aware of the origin of Berk but had to look up taking the mickey. Both have escaped their origins and become mainstream.
Calling some body a Berk is completely different from using the word that rhymes with hunt.
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>
>> Calling some body a Berk is completely different from using the word that rhymes with
>> hunt.
As a recipient, you would like to think so, but can you really be sure.......
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I've always very much enjoyed Viv Stanshall's stuff. I've always assumed this is real rhyming slang, but maybe it isn't actually?
What does "spruced up in me piccolo, me titfer and me daisies" mean? Titfer tat is hat, I know, but after that I'm stuck (without yeah, boring, googling). As to most of the rest of it...
youtu.be/D2NaWdEg9EM
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Dasies = daisy roots / Boots
Picolo, no idea unless I looked it up.
That whole phrase in reality would never be used replaced by "spruced up" or "Suited and Booted"
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I'd never have got daisies, so thanks for that. But piccolo just occurred to,me after I posted. At a guess, piccolo and flute, suit?
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>>piccolo and flute, suit?
Whistle and flute, Shirley!
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>> >>piccolo and flute, suit?
>>
>> Whistle and flute, Shirley!
>>
It probably was whistle and flute = suit though moved onto piccolo, rather like pork pie = lie though you can say "hope you're not telling Melton Mowbrays".
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>> I'd never have got daisies, so thanks for that.
so used because both are hard to pull up.
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>> >> I'd never have got daisies, so thanks for that.
>> so used because both are hard to pull up.
Am I the only one to admit being old enough to remember Lonnie Donegan's "My old man's a dustman"?
An old work colleague used to refer to going for a pony (pony and trap), but I suspect he invented that himself.
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>> Am I the only one to admit being old enough to remember Lonnie Donegan's "My
>> old man's a dustman"?
Certainly do.
>> An old work colleague used to refer to going for a pony (pony and trap),
>> but I suspect he invented that himself.
I've heard that one too. Long enough ago for us to get a laugh at expense of a colleague who ran a Hyundai Pony.
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>> An old work colleague used to refer to going for a pony (pony and trap),
>> but I suspect he invented that himself.
If he did, then he should have copyrighted it, as I know loads of people who use that phrase.
I however use the phrase "going for a tom tit". I also know people who use the phrase "going for a Richard the Third"
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 18 Dec 17 at 12:48
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>>I however use the phrase "going for a tom tit"
Whereas I have never felt the need to share that information or detail, whatever name it is given.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Mon 18 Dec 17 at 14:41
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>> >>I however use the phrase "going for a tom tit"
>> Whereas I have never felt the need to share that information or detail, whatever name
>> it is given.
It meant his colleagues knew he'd be away from his desk for longer than if he was going for a 'jimmy'. Useful if he was asked for.
We'd be able to respond 'he's gone to turn his bike round'. No idea where that comes from.
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>> We'd be able to respond 'he's gone to turn his bike round'. No idea where that comes from.
One of my colleagues says "he's gone to lay a cable"
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"...I suspect he invented that himself."
I thought that one of the features of rhyming slang was that it continuously and rapidly evolved - as some examples in this thread show.
Sometimes the meaning is guessable even if you haven't come across a particular example before (as in "pony" above) and it wouldn't take long for a clever, pithy or otherwise memorable one to take root. One instance was the speed with which "Alans", meaning feminine underwear, appeared in the 1960s after a certain TV programme became popular.
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>> "...I suspect he invented that himself."
>>
>> I thought that one of the features of rhyming slang was that it continuously and
>> rapidly evolved - as some examples in this thread show.
It does. Ruby Murray for example, Curry being a relatively recent social food outing.
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Slang is a sort of secret language. Regular users would probably rarely use the full phrase in many cases, but would just use 'apples', 'daisies', 'boat', 'syrup', 'bristols', 'plates' or whatever.
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We used to use apples & pears and boat race when I was young, also my late father in law had a syrup ...
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>> I've met people who use bits of rhyming slang, often habitually, like pie and mash
>> for slash or apples and pears for stairs. Never heard it used in more extended
>> speech.
Yes. Yes.
We have done all this before - more than once if I am not mistaken (inevitable really, innit - sigh) but one does not say the second bit of the phrase, so it does not actually rhyme.
i.e. I am boracic = skint.
Up the apples = stairs.
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>>one does not say the second bit of the phrase, so it does not actually rhyme.
Ah but ... one would not say I'm having a Harry, or a Wragg.
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>> >>one does not say the second bit of the phrase, so it does not actually
>> rhyme.
>>
>> Ah but ... one would not say I'm having a Harry, or a Wragg.
>>
Perhaps a Donald instead?
As in if something is Donald Ducked it usually reached the end of it's service life ...
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>>As in if something is Donald Ducked it usually reached the end of it's service life ...
I've never heard that one HC, or your Melton Mowbray one so, FP isn't wrong when he says it continuously evolves although, there is rhyming slang, and there is cockney rhyming slang, mayhap.
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There is London Rhyming slang. Ok Its started in the east end, but spread around NE London, SE and South London, rarely heard or used in SW, West, or NW of the metropolis. As those inhabitants also moved out to south Essex and the Medway, its used a lot there as well.
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>> Perhaps a Donald instead?
>>
>> As in if something is Donald Ducked it usually reached the end of it's service
>> life ...
And the full term would be used, not Donald or ducked on its own
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>>
>> >> Perhaps a Donald instead?
>> >>
>> >> As in if something is Donald Ducked it usually reached the end of it's
>> service life ...
>>
>> And the full term would be used, not Donald or ducked on its own
>>
I reckon that if you were talking about a bit of nooky you would say a Donald, not a Donald Duck.
Though if something has reached the end of it's service life you would say that it's Donald Ducked.
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>> We have done all this before - more than once if I am not mistaken
>> (inevitable really, innit - sigh) but one does not say the second bit of the
>> phrase, so it does not actually rhyme.
>>
>> i.e. I am boracic = skint.
>>
>> Up the apples = stairs.
Ah but sometimes one does say both parts, knowing when to do so marks one out as a local or a dick van dyke wannabe.
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>> Ah but sometimes one does say both parts, knowing when to do so marks one
>> out as a local or a dick van dyke wannabe.
As he says those of us not from East London are more likely to use full phrase.
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In the East End backslang was also used. The word is reversed and more or less pronounced that way. Yob is one word that crossed over to the mainstream. My father and mother in law used to delight in confusing me with it. Apparently it was used a lot by butchers and MIL worked in a butchers shop in East Ham for many years
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The backslang that I remember was executed by taking the first letter, putting it on the end and adding an 'A'. Sometimes the first two letters.
Mother became otherma. After a while one could become quite uentfla.
When I worked in a butchers as a Saturday boy during the days of meat rationing, the owner and his wife would call 'liver' - 'revil'. I don't think that fooled anyone.
Last edited by: Duncan on Mon 18 Dec 17 at 14:21
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And if we are talking secret languages we have to include Polari as of course spoken by omnipolaris like Julian and Sandy.
Ever so bold!
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Rhyming slang is quite common in Scotland. Many similarities to the London versions such as "China" for "mate" or "Plates" for feet.
I've heard it theorised that its a result of an amount of linguistic cross fertilisation due to national service.
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Edit above - just remembered another one you hear quite a lot north of the border, "Daisy Roots" for "boots".
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"Flounder" in an episode of the the Sweeney, as in Flounder Dab (Taxi Cab). I try to remember these to use in work to baffle the children.
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Not rhyming slang but I told my eldest that Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire was about the aftermath of a very hot curry which she repeated in the upper sixths' common room with tutors present!
I still haven't been forgiven!
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I'm watching the film Hatton Garden The Heist. Lots of cockney rhyming slang being banded about.
Ones and twos = shoes, to go with the whistle no doubt.
Brass = brass nail, slang for tail, a 19th century word for prostitute, hence the expression 'a bit of tail'.
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>> Ones and twos = shoes, to go with the whistle no doubt.
Nah. Germans* for shoes.
*Get it?
>> Brass = brass nail, slang for tail, a 19th century word for prostitute, hence the
>> expression 'a bit of tail'.
Not convinced.
A brass is a slag. Terribly crude, but there it is.
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Brass Heart - Tart
Brass Door - w****
Brass Flute - prostitute
Brass Nail - Tail -
You takes your pick but they all lead the same way.
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 18 Dec 17 at 22:57
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>>You takes your pick but they all lead the same way.
So I'd heard.
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>>Germans* for shoes.
>>*Get it?
Jews?
>>Not convinced.
>>A brass is a slag. Terribly crude, but there it is.
=>virtuallinguist.typepad.com/the_virtual_linguist/2009/09/brass-nail-and-other-cockney-rhyming-slang.html
Scroll down, there's some other goodies such as barnet fair, dicky dirt, duchess of fife!
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I'm off for a J.Arthur.....................(not really!)
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>> I'm off for a J.Arthur.....................(not really!)
That one also works for the bank (as in going to rather than for).
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>>I'm off for a J.Arthur..
I never had you down as a merchant, Dodger.
:o}
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>> >>I'm off for a J.Arthur..
>>
>> I never had you down as a merchant, Dodger.
>>
>> :o}
>>
Mrs. Palm and her five daughters have no part in my life, I'll have you know!
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Cardboard abb from cardboard front.
But i cannot verify this from a brief Google.
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Obscure rhyming slang - Dog
