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Rhyming slang is a form of slang word construction in the English language. It is especially prevalent among 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 (which is thereafter implied), Bryson, a humourist, states that there is a special name given to this omission: "the word that rhymes is almost always dropped... There's a technical term for this process as well: hemiteleia". Given that this is a genus of plant species, and appears in no readily available sources as a linguistic term, it is unclear whether the humourist was being humorous, or informative. making the origin and meaning of the phrase elusive to listeners not in the know.
The following are further common examples of these phrases:
| Adam and Eve |
| 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 lime |
| bottle and glass |
| Brahms and Liszt |
| boracic lint |
| often pluralised as Bristols |
| Britney Spears |
| e.g. "Let's have a butcher's at that." |
| porcelain plate |
| dog and bone |
| Frog and Toad |
| Gary Ablett |
| grasshopper |
| e.g. "Stop breathing down my Gregory!" |
| Hampstead Heath |
| jam tart |
| Khyber Pass |
| e.g. "Use your loaf!" |
| Often pluralised as minces |
| Ogden Nash |
| e.g. "Have you been telling me porkies?" |
| 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. |
| beef plate |
| raspberry ripple |
| See also: blowing a raspberry |
| "Rub-a-dub-dub" |
| septic tank |
| syrup of figs |
| Often pluralised as threepennys |
| tit for tat |
| tomfoolery |
| trouble and strife |
| treacle tart |
| Turkish bath |
| whistle and flute |
Most of the words changed by this process are nouns, but a few are adjectival, e.g., bales (of cotton) , or the adjectival phrase "on one's Tod" for , after Tod Sloan, a famous jockey.
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."
In the 20th century, rhyming slang began to be based on the names of celebrities and pop culture references:
| oats and barley |
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 ( Hounslow Heath for , was replaced by Hampsteads starting ).
In some cases, False etymology 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.
Outside England, rhyming slang is used in many English-speaking countries in the Commonwealth of Nations, with local variations. For example, in Australian slang, the term for an English person is pommy, which has been proposed as a rhyme on pomegranate, pronounced "Pummy Grant", which rhymed with .The Oxford English Dictionary cites a well-known Australian weekly, The Bulletin, which on 14 November 1912 reported: "The other day a Pummy Grant (assisted immigrant) was handed a bridle and told to catch a horse." See
Rhyming slang is continually evolving, and new phrases are introduced all the time; new personalities replace old ones—pop culture introduces new words—as in "I haven't a Scooby" (from Scooby Doo, the eponymous cartoon dog of the Scooby-Doo) meaning .: "1990s; earliest use found in the Glasgow Herald. Short for ScoobyDoo, the name of a cartoon dog which features in several U.S. television series and films (which typically include the name of the dog in the title), as rhyming slang for clue."
Lesser taboo terms include pony and trap for (as in defecate, but often used to denote nonsense or low quality); to blow a raspberry (rude sound of derision) from raspberry tart for . Taking the Mick or taking the Mickey is thought to be a rhyming slang form of taking the piss, where Mick came from Mickey Bliss.
In December 2004 Joe Pasquale, winner of the fourth series of ITV's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, became well known for his frequent use of the term Jacobs, for Jacob's Cream Crackers, a rhyming slang term for knackers .
Rhyming slang has been used to lend authenticity to an East End setting. Examples include Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) (wherein the slang is translated via subtitles in one scene); The Limey (1999); Sexy Beast (2000); Snatch (2000); Ocean's Eleven (2001); and Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002); It's All Gone Pete Tong (2004), after BBC radio disc jockey Pete Tong whose name is used in this context as rhyming slang for "wrong"; Green Street Hooligans (2005). In Margin Call (2011), Will Emerson, played by London-born actor Paul Bettany, asks a friend on the telephone, "How's the trouble and strife?" ("wife").
Cockneys vs Zombies (2012) mocked the genesis of rhyming slang terms when a Cockney character calls zombies "Trafalgars" to even his Cockney fellows' puzzlement; he then explains it thus: "Trafalgar square – fox and hare – hairy Greek – five day week – weak and feeble – pins and needles – needle and stitch – Abercrombie and Fitch – Abercrombie: zombie".
The live-action Disney film Mary Poppins Returns song "Trip A Little Light Fantastic" involves Cockney rhyming slang in part of its lyrics, and is primarily spoken by the London lamplighters.
In the animated superhero film (2023), character Spider-Punk, a Camden Town native, is heard saying: "I haven't got a Scooby-Doo" ("clue").
The use of rhyming slang was also prominent in Mind Your Language (1977–79), Citizen Smith (1977–80), Minder (1979–94), Only Fools and Horses (1981–91), and EastEnders (1985–). Minder could be quite uncompromising in its use of obscure forms without any clarification. Thus the non-Cockney viewer was obliged to deduce that, say, "iron" was "male homosexual" ('iron'='iron hoof'='poof'). One episode in Series 5 of Steptoe and Son was entitled "Any Old Iron", for the same reason, when Albert thinks that Harold is 'on the turn'. Variations of rhyming slang were also used in sitcom Birds of a Feather, by main characters Sharon and Tracey, often to the confusion of character, Dorian Green, who was unfamiliar with the terms.
One early US show to regularly feature rhyming slang was the Saturday morning children's show The Bugaloos (1970–72), with the character of Harmony (Wayne Laryea) often incorporating it in his dialogue.
British-born M.C. MF Doom released an ode entitled "Rhymin' Slang", after settling in the UK in 2010. The track was released on the 2012 JJ Doom album Key to the Kuffs.
Another contributor was Lonnie Donegan who had a song called "My Old Man's a Dustman". In it he says his father has trouble putting on his boots "He's got such a job to pull them up that he calls them daisy roots".
It is also parodied in Going Postal by Terry Pratchett, which features a geriatric Junior Postman by the name of Tolliver Groat, a speaker of 'Dimwell Arrhythmic Rhyming Slang', the only rhyming slang on the Disc which does not actually rhyme. Thus, a wig is a 'prunes', from 'syrup of prunes', an obvious parody of the Cockney syrup from syrup of figs – wig. There are numerous other parodies, though it has been pointed out that the result is even more impenetrable than a conventional rhyming slang and so may not be quite so illogical as it seems, given the assumed purpose of rhyming slang as a means of communicating in a manner unintelligible to all but the initiated.
In the book Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves, a beer is a "broken square" as Welch Fusiliers officers walk into a pub and order broken squares when they see men from the Black Watch. The Black Watch had a minor blemish on its record of otherwise unbroken squares. Fistfights ensued.
In Dashiell Hammett's The Dain Curse, the protagonist exhibits familiarity with Cockney rhyming slang, referring to gambling at dice with the phrase "rats and mice."
Cockney rhyming slang is one of the main influences for the dialect spoken in A Clockwork Orange (1962). The author of the novel, Anthony Burgess, also believed the phrase "as queer as a clockwork orange" was Cockney slang having heard it in a London pub in 1945, and subsequently named it in the title of his book. Clockwork Orange: A review with William Everson . Retrieved: 2012-03-11.
In rugby league, "meat pie" is used for try.
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