November 7, 2019 • 42 mins
What is Cockney Rhyming Slang? It's complicated and its origins are unclear. Learn everything we know about it today.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Attention Seattle in the Greater Pacific Northwest area. If you
are in town on January sixteen, you're hereby commanded to
go to the More Theater to see us Stuff you
should know. That's right. We are kicking off with Seattle,
all new material. We're super excited. You always turn out
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(00:22):
six show. You can find out ticket info at s
y s K live dot com. Welcome to Stuff You
Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios, How Stuff
Works and Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant right there. There's Jerry Rowland
(00:43):
right there. So that makes this Stuff you should Know
right comes. We can't top that. I was trying to
think a way to say welcome to the podcast in
Cockney rhyming slang. Can you make anyto my My brain
is so broken right now, I can't even try. Okay, good, good, well, welcome.
(01:06):
It's a good, good time to record a show. Exactly
are you gonna do some Cockney in here? Right? We
want to offend as many Londoners as we can. I
don't know, Just just channel a little Dick van Dyke.
Oh you know, yeah, the American doing a bad Cockney accent. Well,
I did recently rewatch The Limey, Yes, for Casey's Benefits. Yeah,
(01:30):
the great, great movie from Steven Soderbergh. I never seen it.
It's awesome, is it really? I mean, I know it's
like a classic and everybody loves it, but I mean
it's really that good. Huh yeah, because a lot of
people liked, Um, I don't know The Hangover? Well, how
would you? How would you like The Lie Me and
The Hangover? Same level? Yeah, they're the same movie almost
(01:51):
all right, it's weird. Well, then I've seen The Hangover,
so I don't need to see The lime The Limey
is great and Tarance Stamp is awesome in it and
uses some Cockney rhyming slang and one great scene. My
big exposure to Cockney rhyming slang is block Stock in
Two Smoking Barrels Snatch, which I think are both directed
by Guy Ritchie Right was in lock Stock like his
(02:14):
first attempt, and Snatch was the one that like got
him married to Madonna. You're a fan of Hits, Yeah,
I mean as much as I like his movies, I
don't like him personally necessarily because he like hunts, bore
like a jackass, and yeah, like drunk with his friends
in the most disrespectful way of murdering a pig. I
(02:35):
mean his movies. But yeah, I do like his movie.
It sounds like he's a creep too. I'm not going
to go on record saying that, but yeah, uh yeah,
those movies are okay. And then I guess what's his name,
don Cheatle a little bit in Oceans eleven. Sure, he
did a little bit of that, right, And I mean
like it's it's code to Americans, it's oh, there's like
(02:57):
a criminal, a British criminal. That's all that means these days. Yeah,
I think so. In movies, it's definitely like all of
those are criminal criminal people in the moment, they're like,
you know, kind of slick, cool criminals that like wear
leather coats and stuff like that, not not dumb criminals
that were like football jerseys or anything like that. They're like,
you know, smooth criminals. That's I think what I was
(03:19):
looking for. But um, this this idea of associating it
with Cockney is not necessarily associating it with criminals. It's
more associated with like um, lower class, working class, less educated,
definitely not the aristocracy over in Britain or the upper class.
And that by by speaking with a Cockney accent, or
(03:42):
more to the point, using Cockney rhyming slang, you could
really differentiate yourself too as a point of pride, like
you were speaking like your group. You're in group, which
was at the time Cockney. But the big surprise to
all this is it's really possible and even probable that
it wasn't then that came up with this rhyming slang,
(04:02):
that it was somebody else altogether. Maybe who knows? Should
we say what it is? No, not for the rest
of the podcast, Cockney rhyming slang. It wasn't even very
clearly defined in this piece. Okay, did you think it was.
It's in there, Okay, you gotta just kind of separate
(04:24):
the wheat from the chaff. So it is a two
word phrase. It is a slang phrase consisting of two words.
Were the last word of that phrase rhymes with the
original word. And it can be And I think the
best way to do this is just to throw out
of you keep describing, well, the two word phrase. It
(04:47):
can be. It can be a lot of things. That
can be a person's name, it can be just something random,
could be a place, could be a place, it could
be a lot of things. It can be anything. Yeah, sure,
I guess it can be. But shall we illustrate it through. Well,
there's a second part to it too, Okay, the second part,
and this is very important. The two word phrase that
(05:07):
you're using to that were the second word rhymes with
the word you're actually saying. Yeah, the original word, the
original word thank you, usually has nothing to do with it.
There's no metaphor, there's no connection, there's no nothing, there's
no there's no context to it. It's supposed to just
be random or in most cases it is just random words, right,
(05:30):
one of which rhymes with the word you're replacing. And
to further complicate things, in a lot of cases, and
no one knows why, sometimes this happens, and sometimes it doesn't.
A lot of times that one of the words of
the two word phrases dropped and then you're just left
with the one word, which doesn't even rhyme with the
original word anymore. Right, that's I mean, that's probably the
(05:52):
best description of cockney rhyming slaying anyone's ever given, So
I think we should illustrate it with a couple of examples.
I've hold some from from something called the Internet. Um.
Here here's one, the tip and tet. That's how long
it took me to come up with that tip and
tet for Internet. But in ten years it'll just be
(06:14):
called the tip. I'm gonna log onto the tip. So
let's say your word was and this was the Ocean's
eleven specifically, trouble is the word that you're trying to say.
Cockney rhyming slang for trouble is Barney rubble. Awesome. Um,
And so you would say you're making a bit of
the Bonnie rubbleed again right when somebody that was kind
(06:36):
of um, who was that making a bit of Bonnie rubble?
Not the CE? I already did it wrong? No, but
I think that's not like a real person to an
American for sure. Oh yeah, Um, I can't, I can't.
I'll shout it out later. Man, I finally did a
good one. We just I just don't know who. But
it wasn't a Cockney person, okay. Uh. Other example, um,
(07:01):
for queen, um, they would use the term baked bean
looks on TV it's the baked bean, and that's the queen.
Or in the case of one that's been dropped, what
is ed used here? Bees and honey. That one is
not dropped for money, okay, but which one was? Apples
(07:21):
and pairs for stairs? Right, So you would say I'm
gonna go up the apple and stairs apples and pears?
Oh man, let me retake this. Everybody. You would say,
I'm going to go up the apples and pears to
go get my wallet to pay for this pizza or
something to that effect. Okay, But then over time people
(07:44):
dropped the pears, and so now the word for stairs
in Cockney rhyming slang is just apples, which, if you're
just standing there on the outside like a normal American
bloke by the way, he means person. Um, you have
no idea why this person just called stairs apples. You
got what they were saying, because the context is there,
(08:05):
You're going up the apples to get your wallet to
pay for the pizza. But why would you just say that?
Did you did you hit your head? Is there something
wrong with you? What's the problem? Why would you just
call that apples? That's why it's so confounding. But the
great thing about cockney rhyming slang, and in particular the
great thing about researching cockney rhyming slang, did you learn
how you get from apples two stairs and then it
(08:29):
makes sense? Sometimes yeah, that's true. It's not always yeah,
sometimes there's uh, it's it's not documented, which Ed points
out is one of the problems. Sometimes you can draw
the line, the through line, but because it's not documented,
and sometimes these things take years and years to morph
into its final version unless you're unless you're you know,
(08:53):
on the on the door now on the streets, than
you wouldn't know. But I don't know what streets is.
You can't just make stuff up, Like there's real words
on the drums and beats on the drums, right, but
they probably have a word for streets. Like that's the
whole point. You can't just make anything up, but you
(09:15):
could if it hasn't been taken yet. Sure. But also
that's the other thing about cockney rhyming slang is it
evolves right so old celebrities that that no one even
knows about any more, followay to new celebrities whose name
also rhyme with you know, whatever word you're saying, right,
I thought you meant old celebrities who maybe used to
talk this way, like Michael Caine. No, he's never said
(09:36):
any rhyming slang in his life. Of course, you got
to see the movie Alfie. Maybe that's who it was.
It might have been Michael Kane. I don't think that
Michael Kane. I think it was as a matter of fact, yea,
thank you, I'm glad you did it. Noel always says
a good joke is to say Michael Caine in the
correct accent, say the words my cocaine, and it sounds
(09:56):
like Michael Caine saying it. Then it sounds like the
correct accent for Michael Caine. Right, Uh, my cocaine. Well,
don't you just blew that one out of the water.
You could have set me up in the future. Now
you haven't my cocaine. Well, there's I've got it two
(10:18):
ways now, man, here's the thing, my cocaine. That's my cocaine.
It's pretty good, Michael Caine, it is good. You're right. No,
you just gotta say it the right way and not
like a robot. Josh. So here's the one of the
things that sort of confounding. If you want to look
up a uh, like a glossary and say, well, here's
(10:43):
I'm gonna do. I'm gonna learn Cockney rhyming slang. So
for my trip to England, I'm really you know, I'm
really in with everybody. First of all, bad idea. Second
of all, it's it can be very localized and the
accents are all different. Yeah, so even people in London
who both who all use people in London don't really do.
(11:05):
But the people who use Cockney rhymings lang in London
might not even agree on what word is means what.
I'm just picturing all the people walking around England laughing
their artists off. I can't wait to get to that
one as we stumble through this. Um Yeah. Ed had
a really good example of why there's no um codification
(11:27):
of the Cockney rhyming slang. He said that when people
are creating a language, especially informal ones like slang, they
don't write it all down. Quote, dear Diary referred to
my house as a cat and mouse today because it rhymed.
We all had a good laugh. Might try just calling
it cat tomorrow and see how it goes. It is.
It sounds funny, but that's that's how it works. Can
(11:49):
you imagine stumbling across the diary that? Um. And here's
the other thing too, is there are cases where there
is a little bit of a reflection and of the
original word. And the example that it gives here is twist. Yeah,
like to call a woman a twist, which I don't
know if that's a derogatory or not, or just some
(12:11):
weird slang that no one uses anymore. I don't think so,
although I don't know. So. Yeah, these are also the
people who use the C word like it's nothing. We
can't fanny, Oh man, I can't wait to go back there,
which we're gonna do soon, is right, I'd love to
do maybe? Yeah? All right. Uh so twist came from
(12:33):
twist and twirl, which meant girl, which is uh they
were talking about like dancing with a girl twisting and
twirling in a nightclub. Let's say, so there's some connection
in that way. Yeah, so girl ended up becoming twist,
So that sort of makes sense. There's another one called
on your Todd after a guy named Todd Sloan, and
(12:53):
it means on your own right, And the thing is,
it's like on your Todd, it makes sense. Sloan rhymes thone.
It doesn't have to have any connection, but that one
actually does because Todd Sloan was a famous jockey in
the nineteenth century. Yes, what other kind is there? Oh? Yes, sure?
Um so his book, his memoir, was called Todd Sloan
(13:15):
by himself, which is weird to refer to yourself in
third person for your memoir, But there was a line
in it that apparently east End east Enders in London
like really picked up. I was left alone by those
I never ceased to grieve for. It's so like the
idea of being alone or on your own became synonymous
(13:35):
with Todd Sloan. His names has happened to rhyme with that.
So it's one of those rare ones where there is
a connection to it, and also rare chuck, and that
this is a nineteenth century horse jockey and still today
on your Todd is recognized as on your own, whereas
a lot of people probably have no idea exact from
who he is. And when that happens that frequently that
(13:57):
person gets moved out for potentially another celebrity another word,
that's a little more understandable to recognize another new jockey
to people today, Right, Yeah, exactly, which can you name one? Nope, nope. Um,
all right, maybe we should take a break and we'll
talk about some of the other uh some other examples
after this message. Okay, we're back. Jerry just opened the
(14:37):
loudest sandwich in the history of the world. She's like,
hold on a minute. And it sounded like it was
in a space blanket. It was like Ernest opens a
sandwich over here. That was a good one, not as
good as part two. I saw that first one in
the theater. Yeah. So here's some other examples that have
(14:57):
Some of them have sort of aid over in England
and some of them have found their way. Like apparently
the term put up your dukes, I didn't Cockney rhyming slang,
so and I didn't write down where dukes came from,
but that's where it was originally a Cockney rhyming slang term. Yeah,
because so, um, you would think it had to do
with fists or something, dukes for fists. What didn't not
(15:20):
write that down? Okay, But but so that's another really
important point to say about cockney rhyming slang. It's frequently
rhyming slang based on slang. So the word it's replacing
is a slang word to begin with, So who knows
what the Duke's actually rhymed with at any point? Yeah,
that's a good point. So, uh, first of all, I've
never heard this blowing a raspberry. What have you heard
(15:43):
of that? Yeah? That's tooting out of your that What
I just did is as much blowing a raspberry is
actually farting. Oh really? Yeah? Okay, well I've heard of
giving someone a raspberry like that. Okay, that's the same thing. Yeah, okay,
Well apparently that's derived from raspberry tart slang for fart.
(16:05):
Isn't that amazing? It's pretty great? Yeah. Um, so that
one is one of the rare ones I love talking
about exceptions. Do you know that? Um, that's one of
the rare ones that made its way to America because
everyone but you knows what blowing a raspberry is. I
guess I've never heard of the term blowing, but giving
someone a raspberry same thing. I found two more. One
(16:27):
is controversial. It's not set in stone, but it's as
good an explanation as any. Get down to brass tacks.
I saw that one too. That's a standing for facts.
Let's get down to the bare facts. Um, possibly it's not.
It's not done. Um. One that is a percent as
far as I can tell, is bread. I saw that
too for money in America, bread and honey became just bread, right,
(16:53):
and it caught on here and caught on again. Just now,
well bees in honey though, was also for money. Is
that just one of the local like depends on where
you are things, Yeah, okay, yeah, but in America, I mean,
you know we use bread. Everybody calls it bread. Yeah.
I didn't know that that would come back. Yeah, somebody
wrote in to say it had come back. Let's get
(17:13):
this bread right, I guess. So that's familiar. You need
to spend more time on Reddit. Uh. Here's another one.
Dog and bone stands in for phone, call me on
the dog and bone. Uh. And then Ed says there
may be some kind of correlation between one syllable words
that lead off that phrase, um staying in the phrase,
(17:37):
But I don't there's so many exceptions. I don't know
if there is a rule exactly. And I think that's
really this is worth saying. We looked all over the place.
I know ED did too, for straight up linguistic dissertations
and papers on Cockney rhyming, slane, it's not there. It's
just treated as fun and hilarious, even though it is
(17:57):
its own made up language. It's ever evolving, still alive,
has been around. We'll talk about the history of a
minute for a hundred and fifty plus years, but apparently
no linguists has ever thought enough of it to to
sit down and write a genuine paper about it. So
we couldn't find that. But the one thing that really
occurred to me was in looking into it. I don't
(18:20):
know if it could ever be explained. I think it's
the result of so many individual decisions and then collective
agreements to take up and go along with those decisions,
and those agreements can be totally undermined by a new
individual decision that catches on that. How could you possibly
map and even understand all or explain all of that
(18:42):
different stuff? But even though we can't explain it, once
you start to learn how it works, it's understandable. So
you can't explain, but you can't understand it. Yeah, And
it's like I always wonder with any kind of slang
or like who who makes the stuff up? Who sets
the rules? It's probably just the kind of thing that
just starts on a playground and spreads from there and
(19:06):
gets codified unofficially. Uh, then everyone's using it, but I
wonder if they're I don't know. You can't trace this stuff,
which is sort of frustrating as researchers, because I think
we like to pinpoint things. Yeah, but it I mean
people have tried to trace it and they've come awfully close. Well,
we'll get to that in a minute. I want to
go over some more of these. I want to get
(19:28):
up on my plates and get out of here your meat,
your plates of meat, plates of meat, which his feet
or between podcast you probably have to go take a rattle, Yeah,
rattle and his rattle and hiss like a snake. You
got it? And that means peep exactly. And then should
(19:48):
I guess we should talk about ours? Yes, that's the
one you were pretty excited about. Yes, because it goes
even so much farther than our Stephen. Yeah, it's pretty convoluted. Okay,
you want to take it? No, go ahead? So urs
the very famous name for ass in the UK. Everybody
knows that it's actually it comes from Aristotle, which you're like, well,
(20:12):
what does that have to do with ass well. Let
me tell you Aristotle is Cockney rhyming slang for bottle. Again,
the question is what does that have to do with
ass well. Originally the Cockney rhyming slang word for ass
was bottling. Glass became shortened to bottle. Somebody came along
and rhymed Aristotle with it. That got shortened to aris,
(20:34):
and then to ours. It goes even further than that.
I saw one plaster for ours, plaster of Paris, Paris, Aristotle, bottle,
bottle and glass. Ass That's how deep the Cockney rhyming
slang has covered up the collective ass of the UK. Yeah,
and again it's like why you can't You can't put
(20:58):
that in a book and explain in it in any
kind of way that makes sense. You gotta do it
on a podcast or a paper. You just have to
accept it. It's like, that's how it happened on the street.
I think that's a really good way on the streets
to the east end right right in your cocaine, No,
not your cocaine. Uh. They do have for all that
we're saying about how don't look at glossaries and stuff
(21:20):
like that, they do have dictionaries that you can buy.
If you're a total square, I would guess it's probably
not a good thing to do. That's like saying, you know,
I want to become a rapper, so let me get
a rhyming dictionary. Although I did have a rhyming dictionary
at one point. Well, rhyming it's not, you know, just
limited to Cockney. We love to rhyme, Yeah, which is
(21:41):
one assertion d makes for why it's popular so long lasting. Well,
should we talk about some of the theories on where
it originated? Because I looked in a bunch of places
and I don't think I mean, I think calling it
theory is a little um. I think they kind of
know where it came from. They just don't know exactly why.
(22:04):
They can't pinpoint it to like on this day, on
this in this place. But it's not a complete mystery though. No,
they've got it basically localized to about a one and
a half mile area of London and basically down to
the year. It's just exactly where and exactly who is
and exactly why are the real outstanding questions, which is
(22:26):
actually a lot of questions. Yeah, one of the one
of the wise was that, uh, and this one I
think doesn't have as much credence now, but it's like
the most common one, right is that you will hear
that it was coded language created by criminals to keep
the cops confused as to what was going on, which
makes sense in one way because it certainly could cause confusion,
(22:49):
but it also um and I think it makes a
pretty good point that like, were they like, were cops
just hanging around overhearing things like why did they feel
like they needed to create this whole langue? Which and cops,
if they were street cops would have figured this stuff
out as well, you know, because it wouldn't have been
that big of a secret. Yeah, there's this guy named
Dick Sullivan who wrote an essay on the Victorian Web
(23:12):
which is actually kind of cool. Um, And he said
the the street cops would have come from the same
areas and families and neighborhoods that the criminals would have,
so they would have been raised on this rhyming slang anyway.
So it doesn't really hold up to scrutiny when you
when you look at it like that it was a
intentionally created coded language meant to confuse the cops, right, then,
(23:35):
that's not to say it nevertheless wasn't associated with some
kind of criminal underworld East London types. Yeah, and it
almost certainly was taken up by the Cockneys, but it
wasn't necessarily Cockneys or criminals who came up with this
rhyming slang. To begin with. There's this guy named John
Camden Hotton, and he wrote one of the better titled,
(23:58):
or at least most directly titled books I've ever heard of,
And there's no colon, No, there's not. There are a
couple of commas though, a dictionary of modern slang, cant
and vulgar words used at the present day in the
streets of London, and he he has a chapter on
rhyming slang, and he basically says that it was two
(24:18):
groups shaunters and patterers, basically traveling salesman who would stand
on street corners and hawk their wares and you know,
maybe pick your pocket while you were trying to buy
something from them, and that they came up with Cockney
rhyming slang. Yeah, and I saw that enough to think
that that's probably true. Yeah. The shaunters in particular spoken
like singing rhyming language, so it would have been pretty
(24:42):
quick evolution. Yeah, I think this one makes a lot
of sense. Um street criers, I mean England and London
especially says as a long tradition of street corner parkers
and things like this. I remember seeing one myself when
I traveled there in the nineties and I was like,
they're still doing this stuff. It was like a box
in the park where you can go stand on it
and soapbox. Uh maybe, I mean that's where that came from,
(25:06):
right probably, and uh and just you know, shout your piece, sure,
and it's all guy doing it, And I thought, what
year is this? This is wonderful, it's fantastic. But the
in particular the Shaunters, they sang and then sold penny
ballads sheet music of penny ballads that they would write
real quick after somebody famous died or there was a
(25:26):
train wreck or something, they'd write a ballad about it
and then be out in the corners selling these things.
But because they were singing in rhymes and sing song,
it's a really good bet that these guys were the
ones who originated rhyming slang. But um not necessarily for
any kind of uh intentionally coded language, because that same guy,
Dick Sullivan says there's no reason for patterers who sold
(25:51):
their you know, little gee galls or trinkets or whatever.
I love that word um or shaunters who were selling
selling these penny ballads. They worked alone. Was no need
for them to come up with a coded language communicate
with one another, yeah, in front of a customer who
they were ripping off. Because they didn't need to communicate
with one another in front of customers. Well, I saw
that maybe they, you know, could communicate with each other
(26:13):
when customers were around or something. I don't know, right.
But the other part of that is that it supposedly
flies in the face of how slang develops, that it's unintentional,
Like you don't say, let's come up with a coded
language and here's how it works. Yeah, even like American
teenagers when they have slang that their parents don't understand,
(26:33):
Like you remember how that stuff went. It was something
you just heard. You never sat around. Sure, I'm hip
to that and said, you know, like, hey, let's use
this other word that our parents won't know what it means.
You know, we'll call it pepsi when we're on the phone. Uh.
There was also the Victorian back slang which that was
(26:54):
not Cockney rhyming slang. That was just pronouncing words backwards. Uh,
sort of simple like job for boy. Yes. But something
interesting about that is that it's based on the spelling,
not the pronunciation, right, which suggests a strong degree of literacy,
which you would probably not have found among at least
(27:15):
the patterners, probably among the shaunterers because they were writing
songs and ballads, so it's possible they came up with
that too, but they think maybe it was Butcher's and
Butcher's assistants who came up with back slang. Yeah, and
actually to confused customers are to be able to talk
about what price they should charge a customer in front
(27:35):
of the customer. So there is like you take all
these different pieces and you get the current idea and
story for Cockney rhyming slang, but it's actually a bunch
of different stuff that wasn't really all connected until later on. Yeah.
What it probably also was not was Irish stock workers.
There was one theory being bandied about that Irish stock
(27:56):
workers would come over and they would speak in this
made rhyming slang. Uh, So you know, they could just
talk among their Irish peers and the people of London
wouldn't understand them. Not much of this makes any sense
at all because they don't. I think now you see
it some in Ireland. But um, for all those years
that it was prevalent in London, it was not in Ireland.
(28:19):
Right unless they literally just made it up when they
came over from Ireland. Right. Plus why would they not
to speak Irish in front of the English? Might not
speak it? Yeah? Or what would that be Gaelic? Uh? Sure,
I think So we're getting so much of this wrong.
Do you want to take a break in fact check
everything and maybe just rewind and start over. Yeah, let's
(28:40):
let's get our weight what was? Facts are our brass tacks.
Let's right, So we gotta go get our brass stright.
That's right. Okay, we're back. It's been about thirty minutes
(29:09):
since we left you guys. Um fact checked everything and
so far, so good. Yeah, this is a perfect podcast.
So you said at the beginning, you teased out that
it might not even have been Cockney to begin with.
Everything I saw kind of placed it in that uh,
that east. I think they call it cheap side um
(29:32):
where the Cockneys were, But Cockney was also I mean
it's also not necessarily specifically at one place, right. No,
But if you're talking about Cockney people, supposedly the definition
of a Cockney person is someone who's born within hearing
distance of the bells of St Mary le Beau in Cheapside, um,
which was in London. What this guy John Camden Houghton,
(29:55):
who was writing in eighteen sixty and placed the um
play the origin of rhyming slang twelve to fifteen years before.
So this guy was like on top of it as
it was happening. Um. He placed it at a place
called Seven Dials, which is like a big market place
and I think still is, which is a mile and
a half away from Cheapside, which at the time was
(30:17):
in Westminster at the time of different town. So you
had city of London and then Westminster, which is where
Seven Dials was. So if you're if you believe Hotton,
then it wasn't the Cockney at all who came up
with that. It was just patterers and Shawn Tours. That's
a different word than I said. No, Shawn Tours, well
(30:38):
Cockney has uh. What that is though, is just sort
of the working class I think used to be viewed
as uneducated sort of lower class. Um. That may be
a bit harsh, but if anything, it was not the
upper crust of British society. Uh, you know the pub
the hard drinking pub goers, the rubb a dub dub goers.
(31:00):
Is that pubs? Yeah, which is another exception because you
go from one one syllable pub to rub a dub
dub and it actually has three rhymes in there. But
that is Cockney rhyming slang for pub. Well. But the
Cockneys were also known for a bit more of progressive politics,
and I think nowadays there can be a bit more
of a of a pride of like a working class
(31:22):
pride associated with it. I think there was back then too,
was there? But I think that's one reason also why
the Cockney accent and Cockney rhyming slang in particular was
um just treated shabbily and looked down on, you know,
by the rest of England, right, because it was supposedly,
you know, associated with lower classes. Yeah, it also found
(31:45):
its way to Australia, isn't that right? And then uh,
somehow on the West coast of America, Um, where the
Australian version came in. Yeah, and the prisons of the
West Coast. In the US, it was called Australian rhyme slang.
So I guess some cool guy from Australia showed up
and was speaking in Gibberish. That just made everyone think
(32:07):
I want to do this too, right. It's kind of
fun to go on YouTube though and see some of these,
you know, because it's such a big thing in England.
It's been all over the BBC. I watched one episode
of the Two Ronnie's where this priest at a sermon
and Cockney rhyming slang. It was very funny and one
of those sort of you know, eighties I guess it
was eighties early eighties. BBC comedies are always fun, you know.
(32:30):
The production value is not all there. The laugh track
is it had to have been a laugh track. I
don't think it was a studio audience, although it may
have been. I don't know. It was hard to tell.
That's so that's during the transition. But there were other shows,
uh Not On Your Nelly and The Sweeney, and the
titles of both of those shows come from actual Cockney
(32:51):
rhyming slang as well. Yeah. The Sweeney is particularly dense.
It's short for Sweeney Todd, which was rhyming slang for
flying squaw, which is a particular branch of the Metropolitan Police,
kind of like Major Case. So the Sweeney was like
the Major Case division of Metropolitan Police. So Nellie comes
from the word Nellie Duff, the name Nellie Duff, which
(33:13):
is apparently just a nonsense name, and that rhymes with puff,
which means life. So not on your Nellie means not
on your life. Clearly, it's so dense. And then of
course things like you mentioned the guy Richie really brought
it into the American consciousness in the nineties when he
made those two movies, and he brought into my consciousness.
(33:36):
I'll tell you that. Yeah. Sure. So there's a really
good question, Chuck, that I think we need to ask.
How is it that in two thousand nineteen you and
I are analyzing a hyperlocal slang that came out of
the eighteen forties in you know, some very specific part
(33:59):
of London, Like, how how is Cockney rhyming slang still
around after all this year, all these years, when so
much other slang has come and gone over the years
that we have no idea ever even existed. What's the
staying power of Cockney rhyming slang. Do you expect me
to have an answer. I don't have one about why
it's stuck around other than people. You know, if people
(34:20):
don't still use it, then it would have fallen by
the wayside. So clearly it's popular. Yeah, it seems to
have gotten and maybe this is just my recognition of it,
but it seems to have gotten more popular in the
last twenty years. What I was reading is that, especially
in the UK, it's popularity is based on kitcheness, you know,
kind of like chipster irony. Like the Cockney rhyming word
(34:41):
for wife is trouble in strife, So I imagine that
probably doesn't go over very well if you don't call
your wife that with a smile, like you're joking kind
of thing. So I think that's the that's the current
use of it, But I mean it's it was used
and it's still in use, and there's still new words
like um passion becks is the word for sex. Really
(35:04):
that's pretty new. Apparently Britney spears can be used for beers,
which is great, and I saw one um Nelson mandela
if you're getting a stella artois, Yeah, is a Nelson
Mandela for Stella. So the fact that it's still evolving,
still being contributed to new like these existing words are
(35:25):
being replaced with new ones. Um, and the fact that
it's a hundred and fifty years old. I mean, there's
got to be some thing to it that makes it
more more I think. I think it's that it's just
so hard to understand until someone explains it to you.
I think it's fun. I think it's a few fold.
It's fun. It's fun. It's fun. It's uh, there is
(35:49):
a code to it, and part of the fun is
that I think his friends maybe trying to make something
up and having it catch on. It's almost like a game,
like a word game. Yeah, bit, did you just go
a bit? And then um, the the unique britishness of
(36:10):
it all, Yeah, is has a lot to do with it.
I think. Yeah, because even though it got exported to Australia,
no one associates it with Australia. Sorry Australia. But if we, like,
if it really took off in America with hipsters, people
in Britain would probably be like, forget it. It's flowing
the it's flow, well, what is flowing the coop? What
could you say, for Coop, it's on the gwynethan the goop,
(36:35):
so the Gwyneth, it's flowing the Gwyneth. Okay, we'll see that.
One might catch on. They can do this all day.
Some of them aren't so good, but other ones are gems.
The why of it all though, to begin with, I
thought was interesting. Um, I asked you why, and you
said you don't know. You said, why is it sticking around?
I mean, why did it start to begin with? And
(36:55):
I think, you know, it makes a pretty good point
that they're just rhyming, period is all. He has been
a thing, even in the States, and he uses examples
like see you later, alligator after a while, crocodile, Like
I remember saying that when I was a kid, I
just said that yesterday. Did you really see you later, alligator?
There's just something about it. Maybe it's the child like
(37:15):
nature of it that's fun. It makes old people feel
young again. Yeah, it's I mean, like it takes something
boring and adds a little flare to it, you know,
or like Yiddish, like a fancy shmancy people say that
kind of stuff all the time. I never associated it
with Yiddish, but it's absolutely is, isn't it. I think so.
I mean not outright Yiddish, but uh Yeish culture, I
(37:38):
think so. Um, But yeah, it is strange. It is
strange that it started to begin with, and like I
wish there was a definite like person zero that we
could point to, and you know, on the streets of
London and someone thought it was funny and then they
told two friends and so on and so on. Richie
(38:01):
Ritchie started it, and POTSI and Ralph Mouth took it
from there and it just kept spreading like wildfire. You
got anything else? Yes, I found a two thousand twelve
survey by the Museum of London and uh, it's set
off a bunch of articles about how Cockney Ryman's slang
is dying. But if you read the article, it says
(38:21):
that respondents believed it was dying, which means six don't
believe it's dying. So yeah, and then they go on
to talk about how there's all these you know, new
words that are being replaced and added. So I don't
think it's going anywhere. I think it's usage is become
more ironic and everything, but it's still like most most
(38:41):
Britains still understand porky pies means lies like, don't tell
me any porkies, give it to me straight. Well, I
think it was good we were able to sit here
and have a good rabbit and pork or torque. Apparently
rabbit and pork is talk. But oh, that was one
other thing the studying this. There's reasons people study this.
(39:03):
It gives you a window into the past. For example, pronunciations, yes,
so farthing used to be um a Camden, well farthings
like a quarter penny that they don't use anymore, but
it used to be called it Camden after Camden gardens,
which tells linguists if they would get off their dust
and study this thing that um, they used to pronounce
(39:25):
farthings as fardens. Oh, interesting, or at least it's something
that rhyme closely to gardens. But that's why people study
this allegedly. Amazing. Well, if you want to know more
about Cockney rhyming slang, get yourself a great Cockney rhyming
dictionary and go to England and just start talking up
the storm. They love. They can't get enough. They'll treat
(39:46):
you like one of their own. That's right. And since
we said that it's time for listener mate. Uh, Satanic Panic.
We just re release that as a Saturday Select. I
think that was Was that one of your picture one
of mine? I don't know, I'm not sure, but it was.
It was a good pick for October. One of our
favorite episodes I think of all time, and we got
(40:06):
a lot of people emailing again about it after listening
to it for the first time. Hey, guys, listen to
say Tanna Panic and realize. I had a story about that.
I grew up in a suburb of California. By the
teenage years, I've become what you might call goth. Were black, spike, jewelry,
dark makeup, and all that stuff. My town had a
ten pm curfew, and one night when I was fourteen,
my friends and I were walking home after curfew got
(40:29):
pulled over by the cops. They questioned and searched us,
then called the parents, except for mine. I'm not sure why,
but the officer insisted on driving me home. Once there,
he also demanded to come inside my home. I was
too scared to argue, so I let him in. He
went to my bedroom. This is getting creepy. I was
really worried about where this was headed. He went to
(40:49):
my bedroom, which is full of posters of Marilyn Manson
in the Crow and stuff like that, and he started
going through my things. What he told me he was
concerned because Satanists are out there, and then if I
wasn't careful, I'd find myself sacrificed. He told me there
were rituals and barns that require virgins, and I should
rethink my lifestyle before I got raped or hurt. I
(41:09):
thanked him for his concern, and I quietly said everything
nice that I could to get him out of my
house before he woke up my father situation. This happened
in two thousand. After hearing your episode today, it's hard
to believe that the residue that the Satanic panic would
still be around then, especially in the police force. Just
to be clear, the suburb I lived and had very
(41:29):
little crime, so the officer was very surprising. Indeed, my
boys and I love your show. I recommend it to
everyone that is from Lisa g Really something, Lisa, I know,
kind of disturbing. Yeah, like I don't I don't know
if that cop was a good guy. I don't know.
It started to go down a pretty creepy road there.
It really did. Yeah, maybe he was just looking for
(41:50):
some pod or something coming up with a cover story.
I gotta get in your room and go through your stuff.
You've got any weed? Yeah? Really? I was relieved to
know that it just ended in the coup leaving, but
I agreed you went above and beyond and not in
a good way. Right. Well, thanks a lot Lisa and
Glade that you made it through that and that you
(42:12):
and your boys are listening to Stuff you Should Know.
Could you get any cooler? I don't think so. Well,
if you want to be cool like Lisa and her boys,
you can get in touch with this by going on
to Stuff you Should Know, checking out our social links there,
and as always, send us an email to Stuff podcast
at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is
(42:32):
a production of iHeart Radios. How Stuff Works. For more
podcasts for my Heart Radio is at the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Attention Seattle in the Greater Pacific Northwest area. If you
are in town on January sixteen, you're hereby commanded to
go to the More Theater to see us Stuff you
should know. That's right. We are kicking off with Seattle,
all new material. We're super excited. You always turn out
for us. Tickets go on sale tomorrow for the January
(00:22):
six show. You can find out ticket info at s
y s K live dot com. Welcome to Stuff You
Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios, How Stuff
Works and Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant right there. There's Jerry Rowland
(00:43):
right there. So that makes this Stuff you should Know
right comes. We can't top that. I was trying to
think a way to say welcome to the podcast in
Cockney rhyming slang. Can you make anyto my My brain
is so broken right now, I can't even try. Okay, good, good, well, welcome.
(01:06):
It's a good, good time to record a show. Exactly
are you gonna do some Cockney in here? Right? We
want to offend as many Londoners as we can. I
don't know, Just just channel a little Dick van Dyke.
Oh you know, yeah, the American doing a bad Cockney accent. Well,
I did recently rewatch The Limey, Yes, for Casey's Benefits. Yeah,
(01:30):
the great, great movie from Steven Soderbergh. I never seen it.
It's awesome, is it really? I mean, I know it's
like a classic and everybody loves it, but I mean
it's really that good. Huh yeah, because a lot of
people liked, Um, I don't know The Hangover? Well, how
would you? How would you like The Lie Me and
The Hangover? Same level? Yeah, they're the same movie almost
(01:51):
all right, it's weird. Well, then I've seen The Hangover,
so I don't need to see The lime The Limey
is great and Tarance Stamp is awesome in it and
uses some Cockney rhyming slang and one great scene. My
big exposure to Cockney rhyming slang is block Stock in
Two Smoking Barrels Snatch, which I think are both directed
by Guy Ritchie Right was in lock Stock like his
(02:14):
first attempt, and Snatch was the one that like got
him married to Madonna. You're a fan of Hits, Yeah,
I mean as much as I like his movies, I
don't like him personally necessarily because he like hunts, bore
like a jackass, and yeah, like drunk with his friends
in the most disrespectful way of murdering a pig. I
(02:35):
mean his movies. But yeah, I do like his movie.
It sounds like he's a creep too. I'm not going
to go on record saying that, but yeah, uh yeah,
those movies are okay. And then I guess what's his name,
don Cheatle a little bit in Oceans eleven. Sure, he
did a little bit of that, right, And I mean
like it's it's code to Americans, it's oh, there's like
(02:57):
a criminal, a British criminal. That's all that means these days. Yeah,
I think so. In movies, it's definitely like all of
those are criminal criminal people in the moment, they're like,
you know, kind of slick, cool criminals that like wear
leather coats and stuff like that, not not dumb criminals
that were like football jerseys or anything like that. They're like,
you know, smooth criminals. That's I think what I was
(03:19):
looking for. But um, this this idea of associating it
with Cockney is not necessarily associating it with criminals. It's
more associated with like um, lower class, working class, less educated,
definitely not the aristocracy over in Britain or the upper class.
And that by by speaking with a Cockney accent, or
(03:42):
more to the point, using Cockney rhyming slang, you could
really differentiate yourself too as a point of pride, like
you were speaking like your group. You're in group, which
was at the time Cockney. But the big surprise to
all this is it's really possible and even probable that
it wasn't then that came up with this rhyming slang,
(04:02):
that it was somebody else altogether. Maybe who knows? Should
we say what it is? No, not for the rest
of the podcast, Cockney rhyming slang. It wasn't even very
clearly defined in this piece. Okay, did you think it was.
It's in there, Okay, you gotta just kind of separate
(04:24):
the wheat from the chaff. So it is a two
word phrase. It is a slang phrase consisting of two words.
Were the last word of that phrase rhymes with the
original word. And it can be And I think the
best way to do this is just to throw out
of you keep describing, well, the two word phrase. It
(04:47):
can be. It can be a lot of things. That
can be a person's name, it can be just something random,
could be a place, could be a place, it could
be a lot of things. It can be anything. Yeah, sure,
I guess it can be. But shall we illustrate it through. Well,
there's a second part to it too, Okay, the second part,
and this is very important. The two word phrase that
(05:07):
you're using to that were the second word rhymes with
the word you're actually saying. Yeah, the original word, the
original word thank you, usually has nothing to do with it.
There's no metaphor, there's no connection, there's no nothing, there's
no there's no context to it. It's supposed to just
be random or in most cases it is just random words, right,
(05:30):
one of which rhymes with the word you're replacing. And
to further complicate things, in a lot of cases, and
no one knows why, sometimes this happens, and sometimes it doesn't.
A lot of times that one of the words of
the two word phrases dropped and then you're just left
with the one word, which doesn't even rhyme with the
original word anymore. Right, that's I mean, that's probably the
(05:52):
best description of cockney rhyming slaying anyone's ever given, So
I think we should illustrate it with a couple of examples.
I've hold some from from something called the Internet. Um.
Here here's one, the tip and tet. That's how long
it took me to come up with that tip and
tet for Internet. But in ten years it'll just be
(06:14):
called the tip. I'm gonna log onto the tip. So
let's say your word was and this was the Ocean's
eleven specifically, trouble is the word that you're trying to say.
Cockney rhyming slang for trouble is Barney rubble. Awesome. Um,
And so you would say you're making a bit of
the Bonnie rubbleed again right when somebody that was kind
(06:36):
of um, who was that making a bit of Bonnie rubble?
Not the CE? I already did it wrong? No, but
I think that's not like a real person to an
American for sure. Oh yeah, Um, I can't, I can't.
I'll shout it out later. Man, I finally did a
good one. We just I just don't know who. But
it wasn't a Cockney person, okay. Uh. Other example, um,
(07:01):
for queen, um, they would use the term baked bean
looks on TV it's the baked bean, and that's the queen.
Or in the case of one that's been dropped, what
is ed used here? Bees and honey. That one is
not dropped for money, okay, but which one was? Apples
(07:21):
and pairs for stairs? Right, So you would say I'm
gonna go up the apple and stairs apples and pears?
Oh man, let me retake this. Everybody. You would say,
I'm going to go up the apples and pears to
go get my wallet to pay for this pizza or
something to that effect. Okay, But then over time people
(07:44):
dropped the pears, and so now the word for stairs
in Cockney rhyming slang is just apples, which, if you're
just standing there on the outside like a normal American
bloke by the way, he means person. Um, you have
no idea why this person just called stairs apples. You
got what they were saying, because the context is there,
(08:05):
You're going up the apples to get your wallet to
pay for the pizza. But why would you just say that?
Did you did you hit your head? Is there something
wrong with you? What's the problem? Why would you just
call that apples? That's why it's so confounding. But the
great thing about cockney rhyming slang, and in particular the
great thing about researching cockney rhyming slang, did you learn
how you get from apples two stairs and then it
(08:29):
makes sense? Sometimes yeah, that's true. It's not always yeah,
sometimes there's uh, it's it's not documented, which Ed points
out is one of the problems. Sometimes you can draw
the line, the through line, but because it's not documented,
and sometimes these things take years and years to morph
into its final version unless you're unless you're you know,
(08:53):
on the on the door now on the streets, than
you wouldn't know. But I don't know what streets is.
You can't just make stuff up, Like there's real words
on the drums and beats on the drums, right, but
they probably have a word for streets. Like that's the
whole point. You can't just make anything up, but you
(09:15):
could if it hasn't been taken yet. Sure. But also
that's the other thing about cockney rhyming slang is it
evolves right so old celebrities that that no one even
knows about any more, followay to new celebrities whose name
also rhyme with you know, whatever word you're saying, right,
I thought you meant old celebrities who maybe used to
talk this way, like Michael Caine. No, he's never said
(09:36):
any rhyming slang in his life. Of course, you got
to see the movie Alfie. Maybe that's who it was.
It might have been Michael Kane. I don't think that
Michael Kane. I think it was as a matter of fact, yea,
thank you, I'm glad you did it. Noel always says
a good joke is to say Michael Caine in the
correct accent, say the words my cocaine, and it sounds
(09:56):
like Michael Caine saying it. Then it sounds like the
correct accent for Michael Caine. Right, Uh, my cocaine. Well,
don't you just blew that one out of the water.
You could have set me up in the future. Now
you haven't my cocaine. Well, there's I've got it two
(10:18):
ways now, man, here's the thing, my cocaine. That's my cocaine.
It's pretty good, Michael Caine, it is good. You're right. No,
you just gotta say it the right way and not
like a robot. Josh. So here's the one of the
things that sort of confounding. If you want to look
up a uh, like a glossary and say, well, here's
(10:43):
I'm gonna do. I'm gonna learn Cockney rhyming slang. So
for my trip to England, I'm really you know, I'm
really in with everybody. First of all, bad idea. Second
of all, it's it can be very localized and the
accents are all different. Yeah, so even people in London
who both who all use people in London don't really do.
(11:05):
But the people who use Cockney rhymings lang in London
might not even agree on what word is means what.
I'm just picturing all the people walking around England laughing
their artists off. I can't wait to get to that
one as we stumble through this. Um Yeah. Ed had
a really good example of why there's no um codification
(11:27):
of the Cockney rhyming slang. He said that when people
are creating a language, especially informal ones like slang, they
don't write it all down. Quote, dear Diary referred to
my house as a cat and mouse today because it rhymed.
We all had a good laugh. Might try just calling
it cat tomorrow and see how it goes. It is.
It sounds funny, but that's that's how it works. Can
(11:49):
you imagine stumbling across the diary that? Um. And here's
the other thing too, is there are cases where there
is a little bit of a reflection and of the
original word. And the example that it gives here is twist. Yeah,
like to call a woman a twist, which I don't
know if that's a derogatory or not, or just some
(12:11):
weird slang that no one uses anymore. I don't think so,
although I don't know. So. Yeah, these are also the
people who use the C word like it's nothing. We
can't fanny, Oh man, I can't wait to go back there,
which we're gonna do soon, is right, I'd love to
do maybe? Yeah? All right. Uh so twist came from
(12:33):
twist and twirl, which meant girl, which is uh they
were talking about like dancing with a girl twisting and
twirling in a nightclub. Let's say, so there's some connection
in that way. Yeah, so girl ended up becoming twist,
So that sort of makes sense. There's another one called
on your Todd after a guy named Todd Sloan, and
(12:53):
it means on your own right, And the thing is,
it's like on your Todd, it makes sense. Sloan rhymes thone.
It doesn't have to have any connection, but that one
actually does because Todd Sloan was a famous jockey in
the nineteenth century. Yes, what other kind is there? Oh? Yes, sure?
Um so his book, his memoir, was called Todd Sloan
(13:15):
by himself, which is weird to refer to yourself in
third person for your memoir, But there was a line
in it that apparently east End east Enders in London
like really picked up. I was left alone by those
I never ceased to grieve for. It's so like the
idea of being alone or on your own became synonymous
(13:35):
with Todd Sloan. His names has happened to rhyme with that.
So it's one of those rare ones where there is
a connection to it, and also rare chuck, and that
this is a nineteenth century horse jockey and still today
on your Todd is recognized as on your own, whereas
a lot of people probably have no idea exact from
who he is. And when that happens that frequently that
(13:57):
person gets moved out for potentially another celebrity another word,
that's a little more understandable to recognize another new jockey
to people today, Right, Yeah, exactly, which can you name one? Nope, nope. Um,
all right, maybe we should take a break and we'll
talk about some of the other uh some other examples
after this message. Okay, we're back. Jerry just opened the
(14:37):
loudest sandwich in the history of the world. She's like,
hold on a minute. And it sounded like it was
in a space blanket. It was like Ernest opens a
sandwich over here. That was a good one, not as
good as part two. I saw that first one in
the theater. Yeah. So here's some other examples that have
(14:57):
Some of them have sort of aid over in England
and some of them have found their way. Like apparently
the term put up your dukes, I didn't Cockney rhyming slang,
so and I didn't write down where dukes came from,
but that's where it was originally a Cockney rhyming slang term. Yeah,
because so, um, you would think it had to do
with fists or something, dukes for fists. What didn't not
(15:20):
write that down? Okay, But but so that's another really
important point to say about cockney rhyming slang. It's frequently
rhyming slang based on slang. So the word it's replacing
is a slang word to begin with, So who knows
what the Duke's actually rhymed with at any point? Yeah,
that's a good point. So, uh, first of all, I've
never heard this blowing a raspberry. What have you heard
(15:43):
of that? Yeah? That's tooting out of your that What
I just did is as much blowing a raspberry is
actually farting. Oh really? Yeah? Okay, well I've heard of
giving someone a raspberry like that. Okay, that's the same thing. Yeah, okay,
Well apparently that's derived from raspberry tart slang for fart.
(16:05):
Isn't that amazing? It's pretty great? Yeah. Um, so that
one is one of the rare ones I love talking
about exceptions. Do you know that? Um, that's one of
the rare ones that made its way to America because
everyone but you knows what blowing a raspberry is. I
guess I've never heard of the term blowing, but giving
someone a raspberry same thing. I found two more. One
(16:27):
is controversial. It's not set in stone, but it's as
good an explanation as any. Get down to brass tacks.
I saw that one too. That's a standing for facts.
Let's get down to the bare facts. Um, possibly it's not.
It's not done. Um. One that is a percent as
far as I can tell, is bread. I saw that
too for money in America, bread and honey became just bread, right,
(16:53):
and it caught on here and caught on again. Just now,
well bees in honey though, was also for money. Is
that just one of the local like depends on where
you are things, Yeah, okay, yeah, but in America, I mean,
you know we use bread. Everybody calls it bread. Yeah.
I didn't know that that would come back. Yeah, somebody
wrote in to say it had come back. Let's get
(17:13):
this bread right, I guess. So that's familiar. You need
to spend more time on Reddit. Uh. Here's another one.
Dog and bone stands in for phone, call me on
the dog and bone. Uh. And then Ed says there
may be some kind of correlation between one syllable words
that lead off that phrase, um staying in the phrase,
(17:37):
But I don't there's so many exceptions. I don't know
if there is a rule exactly. And I think that's
really this is worth saying. We looked all over the place.
I know ED did too, for straight up linguistic dissertations
and papers on Cockney rhyming, slane, it's not there. It's
just treated as fun and hilarious, even though it is
(17:57):
its own made up language. It's ever evolving, still alive,
has been around. We'll talk about the history of a
minute for a hundred and fifty plus years, but apparently
no linguists has ever thought enough of it to to
sit down and write a genuine paper about it. So
we couldn't find that. But the one thing that really
occurred to me was in looking into it. I don't
(18:20):
know if it could ever be explained. I think it's
the result of so many individual decisions and then collective
agreements to take up and go along with those decisions,
and those agreements can be totally undermined by a new
individual decision that catches on that. How could you possibly
map and even understand all or explain all of that
(18:42):
different stuff? But even though we can't explain it, once
you start to learn how it works, it's understandable. So
you can't explain, but you can't understand it. Yeah, And
it's like I always wonder with any kind of slang
or like who who makes the stuff up? Who sets
the rules? It's probably just the kind of thing that
just starts on a playground and spreads from there and
(19:06):
gets codified unofficially. Uh, then everyone's using it, but I
wonder if they're I don't know. You can't trace this stuff,
which is sort of frustrating as researchers, because I think
we like to pinpoint things. Yeah, but it I mean
people have tried to trace it and they've come awfully close. Well,
we'll get to that in a minute. I want to
go over some more of these. I want to get
(19:28):
up on my plates and get out of here your meat,
your plates of meat, plates of meat, which his feet
or between podcast you probably have to go take a rattle, Yeah,
rattle and his rattle and hiss like a snake. You
got it? And that means peep exactly. And then should
(19:48):
I guess we should talk about ours? Yes, that's the
one you were pretty excited about. Yes, because it goes
even so much farther than our Stephen. Yeah, it's pretty convoluted. Okay,
you want to take it? No, go ahead? So urs
the very famous name for ass in the UK. Everybody
knows that it's actually it comes from Aristotle, which you're like, well,
(20:12):
what does that have to do with ass well. Let
me tell you Aristotle is Cockney rhyming slang for bottle. Again,
the question is what does that have to do with
ass well. Originally the Cockney rhyming slang word for ass
was bottling. Glass became shortened to bottle. Somebody came along
and rhymed Aristotle with it. That got shortened to aris,
(20:34):
and then to ours. It goes even further than that.
I saw one plaster for ours, plaster of Paris, Paris, Aristotle, bottle,
bottle and glass. Ass That's how deep the Cockney rhyming
slang has covered up the collective ass of the UK. Yeah,
and again it's like why you can't You can't put
(20:58):
that in a book and explain in it in any
kind of way that makes sense. You gotta do it
on a podcast or a paper. You just have to
accept it. It's like, that's how it happened on the street.
I think that's a really good way on the streets
to the east end right right in your cocaine, No,
not your cocaine. Uh. They do have for all that
we're saying about how don't look at glossaries and stuff
(21:20):
like that, they do have dictionaries that you can buy.
If you're a total square, I would guess it's probably
not a good thing to do. That's like saying, you know,
I want to become a rapper, so let me get
a rhyming dictionary. Although I did have a rhyming dictionary
at one point. Well, rhyming it's not, you know, just
limited to Cockney. We love to rhyme, Yeah, which is
(21:41):
one assertion d makes for why it's popular so long lasting. Well,
should we talk about some of the theories on where
it originated? Because I looked in a bunch of places
and I don't think I mean, I think calling it
theory is a little um. I think they kind of
know where it came from. They just don't know exactly why.
(22:04):
They can't pinpoint it to like on this day, on
this in this place. But it's not a complete mystery though. No,
they've got it basically localized to about a one and
a half mile area of London and basically down to
the year. It's just exactly where and exactly who is
and exactly why are the real outstanding questions, which is
(22:26):
actually a lot of questions. Yeah, one of the one
of the wise was that, uh, and this one I
think doesn't have as much credence now, but it's like
the most common one, right is that you will hear
that it was coded language created by criminals to keep
the cops confused as to what was going on, which
makes sense in one way because it certainly could cause confusion,
(22:49):
but it also um and I think it makes a
pretty good point that like, were they like, were cops
just hanging around overhearing things like why did they feel
like they needed to create this whole langue? Which and cops,
if they were street cops would have figured this stuff
out as well, you know, because it wouldn't have been
that big of a secret. Yeah, there's this guy named
Dick Sullivan who wrote an essay on the Victorian Web
(23:12):
which is actually kind of cool. Um, And he said
the the street cops would have come from the same
areas and families and neighborhoods that the criminals would have,
so they would have been raised on this rhyming slang anyway.
So it doesn't really hold up to scrutiny when you
when you look at it like that it was a
intentionally created coded language meant to confuse the cops, right, then,
(23:35):
that's not to say it nevertheless wasn't associated with some
kind of criminal underworld East London types. Yeah, and it
almost certainly was taken up by the Cockneys, but it
wasn't necessarily Cockneys or criminals who came up with this
rhyming slang. To begin with. There's this guy named John
Camden Hotton, and he wrote one of the better titled,
(23:58):
or at least most directly titled books I've ever heard of,
And there's no colon, No, there's not. There are a
couple of commas though, a dictionary of modern slang, cant
and vulgar words used at the present day in the
streets of London, and he he has a chapter on
rhyming slang, and he basically says that it was two
(24:18):
groups shaunters and patterers, basically traveling salesman who would stand
on street corners and hawk their wares and you know,
maybe pick your pocket while you were trying to buy
something from them, and that they came up with Cockney
rhyming slang. Yeah, and I saw that enough to think
that that's probably true. Yeah. The shaunters in particular spoken
like singing rhyming language, so it would have been pretty
(24:42):
quick evolution. Yeah, I think this one makes a lot
of sense. Um street criers, I mean England and London
especially says as a long tradition of street corner parkers
and things like this. I remember seeing one myself when
I traveled there in the nineties and I was like,
they're still doing this stuff. It was like a box
in the park where you can go stand on it
and soapbox. Uh maybe, I mean that's where that came from,
(25:06):
right probably, and uh and just you know, shout your piece, sure,
and it's all guy doing it, And I thought, what
year is this? This is wonderful, it's fantastic. But the
in particular the Shaunters, they sang and then sold penny
ballads sheet music of penny ballads that they would write
real quick after somebody famous died or there was a
(25:26):
train wreck or something, they'd write a ballad about it
and then be out in the corners selling these things.
But because they were singing in rhymes and sing song,
it's a really good bet that these guys were the
ones who originated rhyming slang. But um not necessarily for
any kind of uh intentionally coded language, because that same guy,
Dick Sullivan says there's no reason for patterers who sold
(25:51):
their you know, little gee galls or trinkets or whatever.
I love that word um or shaunters who were selling
selling these penny ballads. They worked alone. Was no need
for them to come up with a coded language communicate
with one another, yeah, in front of a customer who
they were ripping off. Because they didn't need to communicate
with one another in front of customers. Well, I saw
that maybe they, you know, could communicate with each other
(26:13):
when customers were around or something. I don't know, right.
But the other part of that is that it supposedly
flies in the face of how slang develops, that it's unintentional,
Like you don't say, let's come up with a coded
language and here's how it works. Yeah, even like American
teenagers when they have slang that their parents don't understand,
(26:33):
Like you remember how that stuff went. It was something
you just heard. You never sat around. Sure, I'm hip
to that and said, you know, like, hey, let's use
this other word that our parents won't know what it means.
You know, we'll call it pepsi when we're on the phone. Uh.
There was also the Victorian back slang which that was
(26:54):
not Cockney rhyming slang. That was just pronouncing words backwards. Uh,
sort of simple like job for boy. Yes. But something
interesting about that is that it's based on the spelling,
not the pronunciation, right, which suggests a strong degree of literacy,
which you would probably not have found among at least
(27:15):
the patterners, probably among the shaunterers because they were writing
songs and ballads, so it's possible they came up with
that too, but they think maybe it was Butcher's and
Butcher's assistants who came up with back slang. Yeah, and
actually to confused customers are to be able to talk
about what price they should charge a customer in front
(27:35):
of the customer. So there is like you take all
these different pieces and you get the current idea and
story for Cockney rhyming slang, but it's actually a bunch
of different stuff that wasn't really all connected until later on. Yeah.
What it probably also was not was Irish stock workers.
There was one theory being bandied about that Irish stock
(27:56):
workers would come over and they would speak in this
made rhyming slang. Uh, So you know, they could just
talk among their Irish peers and the people of London
wouldn't understand them. Not much of this makes any sense
at all because they don't. I think now you see
it some in Ireland. But um, for all those years
that it was prevalent in London, it was not in Ireland.
(28:19):
Right unless they literally just made it up when they
came over from Ireland. Right. Plus why would they not
to speak Irish in front of the English? Might not
speak it? Yeah? Or what would that be Gaelic? Uh? Sure,
I think So we're getting so much of this wrong.
Do you want to take a break in fact check
everything and maybe just rewind and start over. Yeah, let's
(28:40):
let's get our weight what was? Facts are our brass tacks.
Let's right, So we gotta go get our brass stright.
That's right. Okay, we're back. It's been about thirty minutes
(29:09):
since we left you guys. Um fact checked everything and
so far, so good. Yeah, this is a perfect podcast.
So you said at the beginning, you teased out that
it might not even have been Cockney to begin with.
Everything I saw kind of placed it in that uh,
that east. I think they call it cheap side um
(29:32):
where the Cockneys were, But Cockney was also I mean
it's also not necessarily specifically at one place, right. No,
But if you're talking about Cockney people, supposedly the definition
of a Cockney person is someone who's born within hearing
distance of the bells of St Mary le Beau in Cheapside, um,
which was in London. What this guy John Camden Houghton,
(29:55):
who was writing in eighteen sixty and placed the um
play the origin of rhyming slang twelve to fifteen years before.
So this guy was like on top of it as
it was happening. Um. He placed it at a place
called Seven Dials, which is like a big market place
and I think still is, which is a mile and
a half away from Cheapside, which at the time was
(30:17):
in Westminster at the time of different town. So you
had city of London and then Westminster, which is where
Seven Dials was. So if you're if you believe Hotton,
then it wasn't the Cockney at all who came up
with that. It was just patterers and Shawn Tours. That's
a different word than I said. No, Shawn Tours, well
(30:38):
Cockney has uh. What that is though, is just sort
of the working class I think used to be viewed
as uneducated sort of lower class. Um. That may be
a bit harsh, but if anything, it was not the
upper crust of British society. Uh, you know the pub
the hard drinking pub goers, the rubb a dub dub goers.
(31:00):
Is that pubs? Yeah, which is another exception because you
go from one one syllable pub to rub a dub
dub and it actually has three rhymes in there. But
that is Cockney rhyming slang for pub. Well. But the
Cockneys were also known for a bit more of progressive politics,
and I think nowadays there can be a bit more
of a of a pride of like a working class
(31:22):
pride associated with it. I think there was back then too,
was there? But I think that's one reason also why
the Cockney accent and Cockney rhyming slang in particular was
um just treated shabbily and looked down on, you know,
by the rest of England, right, because it was supposedly,
you know, associated with lower classes. Yeah, it also found
(31:45):
its way to Australia, isn't that right? And then uh,
somehow on the West coast of America, Um, where the
Australian version came in. Yeah, and the prisons of the
West Coast. In the US, it was called Australian rhyme slang.
So I guess some cool guy from Australia showed up
and was speaking in Gibberish. That just made everyone think
(32:07):
I want to do this too, right. It's kind of
fun to go on YouTube though and see some of these,
you know, because it's such a big thing in England.
It's been all over the BBC. I watched one episode
of the Two Ronnie's where this priest at a sermon
and Cockney rhyming slang. It was very funny and one
of those sort of you know, eighties I guess it
was eighties early eighties. BBC comedies are always fun, you know.
(32:30):
The production value is not all there. The laugh track
is it had to have been a laugh track. I
don't think it was a studio audience, although it may
have been. I don't know. It was hard to tell.
That's so that's during the transition. But there were other shows,
uh Not On Your Nelly and The Sweeney, and the
titles of both of those shows come from actual Cockney
(32:51):
rhyming slang as well. Yeah. The Sweeney is particularly dense.
It's short for Sweeney Todd, which was rhyming slang for
flying squaw, which is a particular branch of the Metropolitan Police,
kind of like Major Case. So the Sweeney was like
the Major Case division of Metropolitan Police. So Nellie comes
from the word Nellie Duff, the name Nellie Duff, which
(33:13):
is apparently just a nonsense name, and that rhymes with puff,
which means life. So not on your Nellie means not
on your life. Clearly, it's so dense. And then of
course things like you mentioned the guy Richie really brought
it into the American consciousness in the nineties when he
made those two movies, and he brought into my consciousness.
(33:36):
I'll tell you that. Yeah. Sure. So there's a really
good question, Chuck, that I think we need to ask.
How is it that in two thousand nineteen you and
I are analyzing a hyperlocal slang that came out of
the eighteen forties in you know, some very specific part
(33:59):
of London, Like, how how is Cockney rhyming slang still
around after all this year, all these years, when so
much other slang has come and gone over the years
that we have no idea ever even existed. What's the
staying power of Cockney rhyming slang. Do you expect me
to have an answer. I don't have one about why
it's stuck around other than people. You know, if people
(34:20):
don't still use it, then it would have fallen by
the wayside. So clearly it's popular. Yeah, it seems to
have gotten and maybe this is just my recognition of it,
but it seems to have gotten more popular in the
last twenty years. What I was reading is that, especially
in the UK, it's popularity is based on kitcheness, you know,
kind of like chipster irony. Like the Cockney rhyming word
(34:41):
for wife is trouble in strife, So I imagine that
probably doesn't go over very well if you don't call
your wife that with a smile, like you're joking kind
of thing. So I think that's the that's the current
use of it, But I mean it's it was used
and it's still in use, and there's still new words
like um passion becks is the word for sex. Really
(35:04):
that's pretty new. Apparently Britney spears can be used for beers,
which is great, and I saw one um Nelson mandela
if you're getting a stella artois, Yeah, is a Nelson
Mandela for Stella. So the fact that it's still evolving,
still being contributed to new like these existing words are
(35:25):
being replaced with new ones. Um, and the fact that
it's a hundred and fifty years old. I mean, there's
got to be some thing to it that makes it
more more I think. I think it's that it's just
so hard to understand until someone explains it to you.
I think it's fun. I think it's a few fold.
It's fun. It's fun. It's fun. It's uh, there is
(35:49):
a code to it, and part of the fun is
that I think his friends maybe trying to make something
up and having it catch on. It's almost like a game,
like a word game. Yeah, bit, did you just go
a bit? And then um, the the unique britishness of
(36:10):
it all, Yeah, is has a lot to do with it.
I think. Yeah, because even though it got exported to Australia,
no one associates it with Australia. Sorry Australia. But if we, like,
if it really took off in America with hipsters, people
in Britain would probably be like, forget it. It's flowing
the it's flow, well, what is flowing the coop? What
could you say, for Coop, it's on the gwynethan the goop,
(36:35):
so the Gwyneth, it's flowing the Gwyneth. Okay, we'll see that.
One might catch on. They can do this all day.
Some of them aren't so good, but other ones are gems.
The why of it all though, to begin with, I
thought was interesting. Um, I asked you why, and you
said you don't know. You said, why is it sticking around?
I mean, why did it start to begin with? And
(36:55):
I think, you know, it makes a pretty good point
that they're just rhyming, period is all. He has been
a thing, even in the States, and he uses examples
like see you later, alligator after a while, crocodile, Like
I remember saying that when I was a kid, I
just said that yesterday. Did you really see you later, alligator?
There's just something about it. Maybe it's the child like
(37:15):
nature of it that's fun. It makes old people feel
young again. Yeah, it's I mean, like it takes something
boring and adds a little flare to it, you know,
or like Yiddish, like a fancy shmancy people say that
kind of stuff all the time. I never associated it
with Yiddish, but it's absolutely is, isn't it. I think so.
I mean not outright Yiddish, but uh Yeish culture, I
(37:38):
think so. Um, But yeah, it is strange. It is
strange that it started to begin with, and like I
wish there was a definite like person zero that we
could point to, and you know, on the streets of
London and someone thought it was funny and then they
told two friends and so on and so on. Richie
(38:01):
Ritchie started it, and POTSI and Ralph Mouth took it
from there and it just kept spreading like wildfire. You
got anything else? Yes, I found a two thousand twelve
survey by the Museum of London and uh, it's set
off a bunch of articles about how Cockney Ryman's slang
is dying. But if you read the article, it says
(38:21):
that respondents believed it was dying, which means six don't
believe it's dying. So yeah, and then they go on
to talk about how there's all these you know, new
words that are being replaced and added. So I don't
think it's going anywhere. I think it's usage is become
more ironic and everything, but it's still like most most
(38:41):
Britains still understand porky pies means lies like, don't tell
me any porkies, give it to me straight. Well, I
think it was good we were able to sit here
and have a good rabbit and pork or torque. Apparently
rabbit and pork is talk. But oh, that was one
other thing the studying this. There's reasons people study this.
(39:03):
It gives you a window into the past. For example, pronunciations, yes,
so farthing used to be um a Camden, well farthings
like a quarter penny that they don't use anymore, but
it used to be called it Camden after Camden gardens,
which tells linguists if they would get off their dust
and study this thing that um, they used to pronounce
(39:25):
farthings as fardens. Oh, interesting, or at least it's something
that rhyme closely to gardens. But that's why people study
this allegedly. Amazing. Well, if you want to know more
about Cockney rhyming slang, get yourself a great Cockney rhyming
dictionary and go to England and just start talking up
the storm. They love. They can't get enough. They'll treat
(39:46):
you like one of their own. That's right. And since
we said that it's time for listener mate. Uh, Satanic Panic.
We just re release that as a Saturday Select. I
think that was Was that one of your picture one
of mine? I don't know, I'm not sure, but it was.
It was a good pick for October. One of our
favorite episodes I think of all time, and we got
(40:06):
a lot of people emailing again about it after listening
to it for the first time. Hey, guys, listen to
say Tanna Panic and realize. I had a story about that.
I grew up in a suburb of California. By the
teenage years, I've become what you might call goth. Were black, spike, jewelry,
dark makeup, and all that stuff. My town had a
ten pm curfew, and one night when I was fourteen,
my friends and I were walking home after curfew got
(40:29):
pulled over by the cops. They questioned and searched us,
then called the parents, except for mine. I'm not sure why,
but the officer insisted on driving me home. Once there,
he also demanded to come inside my home. I was
too scared to argue, so I let him in. He
went to my bedroom. This is getting creepy. I was
really worried about where this was headed. He went to
(40:49):
my bedroom, which is full of posters of Marilyn Manson
in the Crow and stuff like that, and he started
going through my things. What he told me he was
concerned because Satanists are out there, and then if I
wasn't careful, I'd find myself sacrificed. He told me there
were rituals and barns that require virgins, and I should
rethink my lifestyle before I got raped or hurt. I
(41:09):
thanked him for his concern, and I quietly said everything
nice that I could to get him out of my
house before he woke up my father situation. This happened
in two thousand. After hearing your episode today, it's hard
to believe that the residue that the Satanic panic would
still be around then, especially in the police force. Just
to be clear, the suburb I lived and had very
(41:29):
little crime, so the officer was very surprising. Indeed, my
boys and I love your show. I recommend it to
everyone that is from Lisa g Really something, Lisa, I know,
kind of disturbing. Yeah, like I don't I don't know
if that cop was a good guy. I don't know.
It started to go down a pretty creepy road there.
It really did. Yeah, maybe he was just looking for
(41:50):
some pod or something coming up with a cover story.
I gotta get in your room and go through your stuff.
You've got any weed? Yeah? Really? I was relieved to
know that it just ended in the coup leaving, but
I agreed you went above and beyond and not in
a good way. Right. Well, thanks a lot Lisa and
Glade that you made it through that and that you
(42:12):
and your boys are listening to Stuff you Should Know.
Could you get any cooler? I don't think so. Well,
if you want to be cool like Lisa and her boys,
you can get in touch with this by going on
to Stuff you Should Know, checking out our social links there,
and as always, send us an email to Stuff podcast
at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is
(42:32):
a production of iHeart Radios. How Stuff Works. For more
podcasts for my Heart Radio is at the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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