Rhyming slang

Rhyming slang is a form of slang word construction in the English language. It is especially prevalent among Cockneys in England, and was first used in the early 19th century in the East End of London; hence its alternative name, Cockney rhyming slang. In the United States, especially in the criminal underworld of the West Coast between 1880 and 1920, rhyming slang has sometimes been known as Australian slang. The construction of rhyming slang involves replacing a common word with a phrase of two or more words, the last of which rhymes with the original word; then, in almost all cases, omitting, from the end of the phrase, the secondary rhyming word (which is thereafter implied), making the origin and meaning of the phrase elusive to listeners not in the know.

Examples The form of Cockney slang is made clear with the following example. The rhyming phrase apples and pears is used to mean 'stairs'. Following the pattern of omission, "and pears" is dropped, thus the spoken phrase "I'm going up the apples" means "I'm going up the stairs". The following are further common examples of these phrases:

In some cases the meaning is further obscured by additional iterations of rhyme. For example, Aris and plaster are double and triple rhymes of 'arse' respectively. First, arse was rhymed with bottle and glass, shortened to bottle. Next, bottle was rhymed with Aristotle and truncated to Aris. Thus Aris emerged as a double rhyme of 'arse'. Aris was then itself further rhymed with plaster of Paris, producing plaster as a triple rhyme of 'arse'.

Phonetic versus phono-semantic forms Ghil'ad Zuckermann, a linguist and revivalist, has proposed a distinction between rhyming slang based on sound only, and phono-semantic rhyming slang, which includes a semantic link between the slang expression and its referent (the thing it refers to). An example of rhyming slang based only on sound is the Cockney tea leaf 'thief'. An example of phono-semantic rhyming slang is the Cockney sorrowful tale 'jail', in which case the person coining the slang term sees a semantic link, sometimes jocular, between the Cockney expression and its referent.

Mainstream usage The use of rhyming slang has spread beyond the purely dialectal and examples are to be found in the mainstream British English lexicon, although many users may be unaware of the origin of those words.

The expression "blowing a raspberry" comes from raspberry tart for 'fart'. Berk, a mild pejorative widely used across the UK and not usually considered particularly offensive, although the origin lies in a contraction of "Berkeley Hunt", as the rhyme for the significantly more offensive 'cunt'. "To have a butcher's" for 'to have a look', from butcher's hook. Most of the words changed by this process are nouns, but a few are adjectival, e.g., bales (of cotton) 'rotten', or the adjectival phrase "on one's Tod" for 'on one's own', after Tod Sloan, a famous jockey.

History Rhyming slang is believed to have originated in the mid-19th century in the East End of London, with several sources suggesting some time in the 1840s. The Flash Dictionary, of unknown authorship, published in 1921 by Smeeton (48mo), contains a few rhymes. John Camden Hotten's 1859 Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words likewise states that it originated in the 1840s ("about twelve or fifteen years ago"), but with "chaunters" and "patterers" in the Seven Dials area of London. Hotten's Dictionary included the first known "Glossary of the Rhyming Slang", which included later mainstays such as frog and toad 'the main road' and apples and pears 'stairs', as well as many more obscure examples, e.g. Battle of the Nile 'a tile' (a common term for a hat), Duke of York 'take a walk', and Top of Rome 'home'. It remains a matter of speculation exactly how rhyming slang originated, for example, as a linguistic game among friends or as a cryptolect developed intentionally to confuse non-locals. If deliberate, it may also have been used to maintain a sense of community, or to allow traders to talk amongst themselves in marketplaces to facilitate collusion, without customers knowing what they were saying, or by criminals to confuse the police (see thieves' cant). The academic, lexicographer and radio personality Terence Dolan has suggested that rhyming slang was invented by Irish immigrants to London "so the actual English wouldn't understand what they were talking about."

Development

Many examples of rhyming slang are based on locations in London, such as Peckham Rye, meaning 'tie', which dates from the late nineteenth century; Hampstead Heath, meaning 'teeth' (usually as Hampsteads), which was first recorded in 1887; and barnet (Barnet Fair), meaning 'hair', which dates from the 1850s. In the 20th century, rhyming slang began to be based on the names of celebrities and pop culture references:

Many examples have passed into common usage. Some substitutions have become relatively widespread in England in their contracted form. To have a butcher's, meaning 'to have a look', originates from butcher's hook, an S-shaped hook used by butchers to hang up meat, and dates from the late nineteenth century but has existed independently in general use from around the 1930s simply as butchers. Similarly, "use your loaf", meaning 'use your head', derives from loaf of bread and also dates from the late nineteenth century but came into independent use in the 1930s. Conversely usages have lapsed, or been usurped (Hounslow Heath for 'teeth', was replaced by Hampsteads starting c. 1887). In some cases, false etymologies exist. For example, the term barney has been used to mean an altercation or fight since the late nineteenth century, although without a clear derivation. Dialog in the 2001 film Ocean's Eleven incorrectly explains that barney derives from Barney Rubble, a character from the 1960's television cartoon The Flintstones. Before the calendar change, St Barnabas Day fell on Midsummer's Day and had its own rhyme: Barnaby Bright, Barnaby Bright. The longest day and the shortest night, although the earliest reference is in Edmund Spenser's 1594 Epithalamion, with the lines "This day the sunne is in his chiefest hight, With Barnaby the bright...", giving a clear, though unproven, derivation.

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