Rhyme and Reason: the Methods and Meanings of Cockney Rhyming Slang, Illustrated with Some Proper Names and Some Improper Phrases

Abstract

while I lemon me Germans!,,1 This was probably immediately understood by Mr. Hitchcock who, though he has been in Hollywood since Rebecca (1940), was born in England (1899) and may well be able to trade Cockney rhyming slang-for such it was-with the best of them.Rhyming slang has received contributions from the West Coast of America and even the out-back of Australia (which gave us "Wee Georgie Wood"-he was an actor-for "good") but it is essentially a London product, the invention and pride of those born within the sound of Bow Bells. 2 From the Cockneys it has spread, in examples such as "elephants" (for "drunk," from "elephant's trunk"), "pimple" (for "scotch," from "pimple and blotch "), and "plates" (from "plates of meat" for "feet") to the trendy West End and entered the lingo of the private (the English of course call them public) schools. Today it is part of the fashionable speech of almost all classes of British society. A small part, but worth notice. "Oh Sairey, Sairey," wrote Dickens, "little do we know what lays afore us!"

Coronavirus rhyming slang

“…The words mentioned above reveal a major feature of slang in general, namely the proliferation of synonyms for certain key referents and concepts, a phenomenon known as 'overlexicalisation' (Halliday, 1976: 571) or 'hypersynonymy' (Wescott, 1977: 117). They are at the same time testimony to the abundance or rather overabundance of names in modern RS (Ashley, 1977;Ayto, 2002: xi)…”

The rhyming slang of the junkie

“…Croft 1997:187) and the equally great upsurge in the use of RS in Britain within the past few decades (cf. Ashley 1977). Indeed, the glossary below bears evidence that RS, quaint though it may seem to the uninitiated, has recently entrenched itself in the British drug scene.…”

A bit o’ footy rabbit: Some notes on football rhyming slang

“…Names of sports stars, singers and other celebrities have been a staple of RS for nearly as long as this form of expression has been documented (see Ashley 1977). Hotten (1859), one of the foremost lexicographers of slang and the first to include a section on RS in a dictionary, lists Jack Randle 'a candle', formed on the name of bare-knuckle boxer Jack Randall.…”