[HN Gopher] Cockney Rhyming Slang History
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Cockney Rhyming Slang History
Author : BerislavLopac
Score : 70 points
Date : 2020-10-13 09:43 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (romanroadlondon.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (romanroadlondon.com)
| dia80 wrote:
| I used to work with a bit of a "geezer". He would use what I
| termed 2nd order rhyming slang.
|
| "He got it right in the Aris!"
|
| Aris => Aristotle => Bottle => Bottle & glass => Ass
| johnnycab wrote:
| A similar anecdote, except this 'geezer' was a Mockney from
| Essex (not so dissimilar to Jamie Oliver).
|
| "Lets go for an oily"
|
| Oily -> Oily Rag -> Fag -> Cigarette
| throwaway_dcnt wrote:
| Oi Oi Savaloy! I was taught this by a very rough and tumble
| looking cockney gentleman in a spanish pub near oxford street in
| london. I almost thought he was a con artist because of the non
| stop sob stories he told throughout the evening but when I tired
| to give him two hundred pounds (it was great entertainment
| value), he got offended and refused to accept it.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I'd never heard of CRS until I worked for someone who grew up
| with it -- he had a music marketing company; I had perl skills --
| right after the turn of the century.
|
| It was confusing at first, but very quickly my business partner
| and I were throwing the terms around as often as him -- we
| couldn't call because we were already "on the dog" (dog and bone
| -> telephone), or asking each other to "have a butcher's"
| (butcher's hook -> look) at new code committed, etc.
|
| In the end we were all greeting each other as chinas (china plate
| -> mate), and lamenting the lack of a good Ruby Murry (-> curry)
| in the town he lived in. I found it all pretty charming and
| fascinating.
| coldcode wrote:
| I wonder if one could build a programming language with CRS. I
| mean, if you can use Brainfuck for all sorts of things, why not?
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Metcheck fac blinders Amanda rooster: Scratch&sniff
| rooster nun&priest bottle Yes&amen rooster
| bow_bells_chimes fac(rooster thomas_aquinas quid)
| Picts&celts quid .
|
| Or should even the operation formerly known as ! be renamed to
| Fleetwood?
| Izkata wrote:
| Better parallel than Brainfuck, the Shakespeare programming
| language:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_Programming_Lang...
| vr46 wrote:
| Money slang finds its way into my speech when I'm chatting with
| mates from the East, we might be discussing buying a old
| motorbike or something and it'll be like, "yeah, it's not bad for
| a monkey, is it?!" or it'd be everyday chat, "cost me a score" or
| "set aside a ton".
|
| My mates were all diehard Millwall fans for those that would
| understand theconnection.
| peteri wrote:
| score is basically biblical From the Bible, Psalm 90, verse 10:
| "The days of our years are three score and ten."
| anonAndOn wrote:
| Across the pond, Yanks who 'member a bit from HS history
| class can probably recite ol' Honest Abe's most famous
| opening line, "Four score and seven years ago...".
| vr46 wrote:
| Yes, true, can something be slang if it's just old? "Dozen"
| is pretty old too, but is never used for money.
| noir_lord wrote:
| Was until 1971 in the UK 12 * 20 = 240 pence in pound.
|
| 12 pence in a shilling and funnily 20 shillings in a pound.
| stan_rogers wrote:
| Biblical? It's a lot older than any English bible; scoring
| (reckoning in base 20) just happened to be something were
| very familiar with at the time the Tyndale and later King
| James bibles were translated. Children's games in parts of
| England still use Celtic-derived "sheep scoring" numbers.
| roter wrote:
| A Cockney Lorem Ipsum generator [0].
|
| [0] https://www.cockneyrhymingslang.co.uk/cockney-lorem-ipsum/
| dtf wrote:
| Consider the word "berk" - a fairly mild sounding insult that's a
| bit like "jerk" - but which actually implies something rather
| stronger.
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/berk
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Verlan, like Lunfardo, often makes up basilect argot vocabulary
| by swapping syllables from the acrolect. A problem occurs when
| the slang term becomes too popular, and the process needs to
| repeat (without self-inverting) to invent a new cryptic term.
|
| For instance, _femme_ - > _meuf_ - > _feumeu_ , of which I
| regularly hear the second in my unhip rural area, but have not
| yet heard the third.
|
| Argies reportedly have _chambon_ - > _boncha_ - > _chabon_.
| BerislavLopac wrote:
| Probably the most widely known Cockney rhyming phrase is "blowing
| a raspberry", which comes from "raspberry tart"...
| teachrdan wrote:
| In the US, it's gotta be "bread," as in "bread & honey." I
| think the "dukes" in "put up your dukes" is also supposed to
| come from Cockney rhyming slang, but I can't remember how.
| rutthenut wrote:
| I wouldn't think of that as the 'most widely known', tbh
| BerislavLopac wrote:
| It might be not known to be a rhyming slang, but the phrase
| is in use pretty much everywhere.
| memsom wrote:
| There are a lot that people use. "Give me a Butchers"
| (Butcher's hook - look) is another I still hear a lot. Or just
| "giz a butch" as a more colloquial version. I think "having a
| Ruby" is less common outside of Greater London.
|
| Context: I'm from the South Coast, navy town, and we had a lot
| of dockers from London move here in the 19th and 20th
| centenaries. If you listen to the way older people speak, they
| have a cockney twang with some Hampshire vowels thrown in.
| Growing up we used a lot of rhyming slang mixed in with a lot
| of London slang and "Gypsy" words. So off the top of my head
| (sorry - none are rhyming slang): Mush/geezer for man (and
| geezer is not an old man like in American usage), to chav -
| steal, khark it - die, bird - woman, mare - any bad situation,
| having a mare - having a bad time, squin(ny) - someone prone to
| crying or telling tales, din(lo) - idiot, dinny - stupid, lairy
| - cheeky or confrontational, to cop - to be angry. You get the
| idea. Most of the consonants sound like Londonish ones, most
| Londonish vowels are different. So (in some rough
| approximation) "dane" for down, rather than "dahn", "pained"
| for pound rather than "paahnd", but baw for ball, bu'a for
| butter, and li'aw for little, hevva for heather, fing for
| thing. English accents are sent to blow American minds - that
| much I'm sure of.
| rutthenut wrote:
| Also "I couldn't give a monkey's", though don't think that is
| CRS, but definitely slang I am used to (and use)
| chromaton wrote:
| Or "brass tacks" < "facts".
| tsujp wrote:
| I'm curious, is there any canonical cockney rhyming slang for
| "dictionary" or "thesaurus"? Failing that does anyone have any
| suggestions to add to the lexicon for either or?
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| I'd certainly be _Pete Tong_ for canonical[1], but suggest
| _County_ and _vegetarian_ , respectively? (County Tipperary,
| vegetarian brontosaurus)
|
| [1] posting anyway as I suspect those two examples may be
| somewhat _judicially_ to have a common slang _Dickie_.
| (judicially hyperkalemic, Dickie Bird)
| chrisseaton wrote:
| People outside England will probably assume Cockney Rhyming Slang
| is one of those things that nobody actually uses anymore and is
| just done in bad films to play up Englishness and to invoke a
| feeling of London... but it's actually pretty common to hear
| people using it naturally and un-ironically in speech here -
| especially examples like 'I haven't got a Scooby, mate' or 'let's
| go for a Ruby after this'.
| dave84 wrote:
| All the cockney rhyming slang I know I learned from Del on Only
| Fools and Horses.
| Maha-pudma wrote:
| Loved, still do, this program growing up.
| hanoz wrote:
| That's where I learned all my French.
| lordnacho wrote:
| I used to use Cockney Rhyming slang every day at work.
|
| A fair few of the guys trading derivatives when I started were
| "locals" is two senses of the word: they were from London and
| they they traded as market makers.
|
| You'd have special words for numbers like donkey and monkey.
| Combined with general market terms you'd say things like "I'll
| lift you for a donkey", IIRC meaning I'll buy 250 of those
| contacts.
| kencausey wrote:
| Where is the rhyming connection here?
| lordnacho wrote:
| Good question, it would be hidden. You'd ask a guy wtf
| "Lady Godiva" meant and he'd say "Fivah". The animals for
| numbers, I don't remember. Possibly some connection ages
| ago that you similarly needed to have the story for.
| kencausey wrote:
| Ah, I incorrectly inferred that you were involved in the
| creation of the slang.
| C1sc0cat wrote:
| Ruby or Ruby Murry is in common use generally for going to an
| Indian Restaurant.
| Jestar342 wrote:
| I went to a carwash disco wearing full-on glam-rock attire. Got
| on the DLR and was met with a "BLIMEY! Look a the Lionels on
| 'im!" :)
|
| I too hear it all the time. I also use it a lot, too.
| kitd wrote:
| In case anyone's wondering, Lionels -> Lionel Blair (a
| British entertainer of the 1970/80s) -> flairs
|
| I used to row with a Cockney. He had a few good sayings. One
| of my favourites was "Woah, that got the strawberry goin'"
| (strawberry -> strawberry tart -> heart) which was visually
| appealing too.
| Twirrim wrote:
| I'm not a Londoner, I come from further south, in an area that
| has an almost "Received Pronunciation" way of speaking.
|
| When I moved to the US, I discovered I used two bits of it
| really often. "Scooby", that you mentioned, and "Butchers".
| Butchers Hook -> Look, e.g. "If you can give me a couple of
| minutes, I'll take a butchers at it, see if I can see what's
| going on".
|
| I had to break out of that habit fairly quickly, cut down on a
| bunch of confusion for folks. A coworker at the time half-
| jokingly commented that he didn't understand half the things I
| said, but always figured it out from context.
| playcache wrote:
| Gis'a butchers.
| tspiteri wrote:
| This reminds me of Ocean's Eleven, where everyone in the
| group effortlessly understood the Chinese member, but noone
| understood the British member when he said stuff like "We're
| in Barney" which he had to explain as "you know, Barney
| Rubble, trouble".
| losvedir wrote:
| Is it the general "algorithm" that's still in use? Or is it
| more like there's a collection of known slang phrases, that
| happened to have been generated that way in the past, that are
| known and used.
|
| For example, what's the newest example in use? For that matter,
| do people still use it as sort of a "puzzle" for their friends?
| Or do they mostly use phrases that are known by all already?
| Daub wrote:
| It's a mix of known terms and newly invented ones. Obscure
| cultural references are popular, whether recent or not. My
| favorite... Jecklls = trousers. Reasoning thusly:
|
| Jeckll from Jeckll and Hyde. Hyde rhymes with stride. Stride
| is Australian slang for trousers.
|
| I explained this to a linguist at my university and she was
| beyond ecstatic.
| devindotcom wrote:
| That's excellent. Also normally I wouldn't care but because
| it's your favorite and you will probably have occasion to
| write it out again, it's spelled Jekyll. :)
| opsunit wrote:
| Britney Spears = Beers. Brad Pitt = Shit.
|
| "Get the Britneys in, I'll be back in a minute - I'm off for
| quick Brad".
| Jackypot wrote:
| There is 'Sherman' for an American which is Sherman Tank ->
| Yank. So that can only be WW2 onwards. And 'Ruby' for curry
| (Ruby Murray) is from the fifties. Those are the most recent
| I can think of.
| gerdesj wrote:
| Septic is the usual one for Yank. Sherman is too polite to
| be true. Besides, septics have been around far longer than
| WWII.
| [deleted]
| noir_lord wrote:
| Pete tong.
|
| It's all gone a bit Pete Tong.
|
| Radio DJ in the 1990s.
| gerdesj wrote:
| Davina's - Davina McCall. eg _kick 'im in the davina's_.
|
| Often the Tong is dropped - _It 's all gone a bit pete_ or
| even _s 'gone peter_
| galuggus wrote:
| I've heard Bag* (for PS1000/$1000) in American rap songs.
|
| I believe this came via grime (originating in cockney heartland
| Bow) musicians using it >
|
| Grime fan/cultural superspreader Drake picking it up
|
| *bag of sand = grand
| [deleted]
| BerislavLopac wrote:
| This cartoon manages to cram a lot of commentary on British
| society, plus a nice rhyming slang reference:
| https://twitter.com/gibbs_jonathan/status/116641737510274253...
| ;)
|
| (Link to the archive: https://www.alexcartoon.com/archive-
| result.cfm?action=search...)
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Are there any examples of phrases which can mean their opposites
| when unslanged?
|
| For instance, if the Expanse's asteroid Belters used rhyming
| slang, I could imagine: Da Rosi du sensa.
| (we say) The Rocinante apologise Komante nakangepensa.
| (we mean) Management are cretins
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Nice _unknown host_. I sometimes _magic dunder_ if we could do
| the same with _fopen and lseek_ slang. Anyone have any _404_?
|
| (Upon reflection, the other direction also works, as in radio
| edits that fail to rhyme.)
| sbmassey wrote:
| 406, mate
| dash2 wrote:
| Charming, cheeky Cockney chappies are not universally loved in
| this fairest of isles: http://viz.co.uk/category/cockney-wanker/
| [deleted]
| x87678r wrote:
| Millwall represent.
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