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 US, especially 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, 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. 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:

Slang word	Meaning	Original phrase	Notes
Adam and Eve		Adam and Eve	-
Aris			This is the result of a double rhyme. Arse was rhymed with bottle and glass. Bottle was then rhymed with Aristotle and truncated to Aris.
bird		bird lime	-
bottle		bottle and glass	-
Brahms		Brahms and Liszt	-
boracic		boracic lint	-
Bristol		Bristol City	often pluralised as Bristols
Britneys		Britney Spears	-
butcher's		butcher's hook	e.g. "Let's have a butcher's at that."
china		china plate	-
dog		dog and bone	-
frog		Frog and Toad	-
Gary		Gary Ablett	-
grass	or	grasshopper	-
Gregory		Gregory Peck	e.g. "Stop breathing down my Gregory!"
Hampsteads		Hampstead Heath	-
jam tart		jam tart	-
Khyber		Khyber Pass	-
loaf		loaf of bread	e.g. "Use your loaf!"
mince		mince pie	Often pluralised as minces
Ogden		Ogden Nash	-
pork		pork pie	e.g. "Have you been telling me porkies?"
plaster			This is the result of a triple rhyme. Arse was rhymed with bottle and glass. Bottle was then rhymed with Aristotle and truncated to Aris. Lastly, Aris was rhymed with plaster of Paris.
plates		plates of meat	-
raspberry		raspberry ripple	-
raspberry		raspberry tart	See also: blowing a raspberry
rub		"Rub-a-dub-dub"	-
septic		septic tank	-
syrup		syrup of figs	-
threepenny		threepenny bit	Often pluralised as threepennys
tit for		tit for tat	-
Tom		tomfoolery	-
trouble		trouble and strife	-
treacle		treacle tart	-
Turkish		Turkish bath	-
weasel		weasel and stoat	-
whistle		whistle and flute	-

In some cases the meaning is further obscured by additional iterations of rhyme. For example, Aris and plaster are double and triple rhymes of 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. Aris was then itself further rhymed with plaster of Paris, producing plaster as a triple rhyme of.

Phonetic versus phono-semantic forms

, 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. An example of rhyming slang based only on sound is the Cockney tea leaf. An example of phono-semantic rhyming slang is the Cockney sorrowful tale, 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 some 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.
Another example is 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.
Another example is "to have a butcher's" for, from butcher's hook.

Most of the words changed by this process are nouns, but a few are adjectival, e.g., bales , or the adjectival phrase "on one's Tod" for, 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, 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, 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 and apples and pears, as well as many more obscure examples, e.g. Battle of the Nile , Duke of York, and Top of Rome.
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.
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, which dates from the late nineteenth century; Hampstead Heath, meaning , which was first recorded in 1887; and barnet, meaning, which dates from the 1850s.
In the 20th century, rhyming slang began to be based on the names of celebrities and pop culture references:

Pop culture reference	Meaning	Citation
Andrea Corr, George Bernard Shaw, Roger Moore, or Rory O'Moore	door
Alan Whicker	knickers
Bob Marley	"Charlie", a street name for cocaine
Boutros Boutros-Ghali or Gianluca Vialli	oats and barley	-
Brady Bunch	lunch
Britney Spears	beers or tears
Bugs Bunny	money
Captain Kirk	work
Dan Dare, Lionel Blair, Rupert Bear, or Tony Blair	flares
D'Oyly Carte
Father Ted	dead
Gregory Peck	neck or cheque
Hank Marvin	starving
Henry Hall	balls
Jimmy Riddle
Jodrell Bank, J. Arthur Rank, or Sherman tank
Kurt Cobain	cocaine
Max Miller	pillow
Meryl Streep	cheap
Mickey Mouse	Scouse
Mona Lisa	pizza
Nat King Cole	"the dole"
Niki Lauda	"powder", a street name for cocaine
Patsy Cline	"line", a street name for cocaine
"Pop Goes the Weasel"	diesel
Puff Daddy	caddy
Ruby Murray	curry
Schindler's List	pissed
Scooby-Doo	clue
Wallace and Gromit	vomit
Winnie the Pooh	shoe

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, 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, 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.
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.