Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's your old pal Josh. And for this
Speaker 1: week's select, I've chosen our episode from November of twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen on Cockney rhyming slang. This is one of those
Speaker 1: silly episodes that's also packed with a lot of interesting information.
Speaker 1: And I remember Chuck and I having fun making yet
Speaker 1: so I hope you'll enjoy listening to it too.
Speaker 2: Enjoy Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
Speaker 1: there's Charles w Chuck Bryant right there. There's Jerry Rowland
Speaker 1: right there. So that makes this stuff you should know
Speaker 1: right in. That's it for me. Can't top that.
Speaker 3: I was trying to think a way to say welcome
Speaker 3: to the podcast and cockney rhyming slang. Can you make
Speaker 3: an intense My brain is are broken right now. I
Speaker 3: can't even try.
Speaker 1: Okay, good, good, well, welcome.
Speaker 3: It's a good good time to record a show, right exactly.
Speaker 1: You're gonna do some cocknye in here, right. We want
Speaker 1: to offend as many Londoners as we can.
Speaker 3: I don't know, just just channel a little Dick Van Dyke.
Speaker 3: Oh you know, Yeah, the American.
Speaker 1: Doing a bad Cockney accent.
Speaker 3: Well, I did recently rewatch The Limey.
Speaker 1: Yes, for Casey's Benefits.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the great, great movie from Steven Soderberg.
Speaker 1: Never seen it.
Speaker 3: It's awesome, is it really? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I know it's like a classic and everybody
Speaker 1: loves it, but I mean it's really that good? Huh Yeah,
Speaker 1: because a lot of people liked I don't know, The Hangover.
Speaker 3: I like the Hangover?
Speaker 1: Well, how would you? How would you like The Linemy
Speaker 1: and the Hangover? Same level?
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're the same movie almost all right, it's weird.
Speaker 1: Well, then I've seen The Hangover, so I don't need
Speaker 1: to see the Limy.
Speaker 3: No, the Lemmy's great and Terrence Stamp is awesome, and
Speaker 3: it and uses some Cockney rhymings in one great scene.
Speaker 1: My big exposure to Cockney rhyming slang is Lockstock in
Speaker 1: Two Smoking Barrels Snatch, Yeah, which I think are both
Speaker 1: directed by Guy Ritchie. Right, wasn't Lockstock like his first
Speaker 1: attempt in Snatch was the one that like got him
Speaker 1: married to Madonna?
Speaker 3: You a fan of Hits?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean as much as I like his movies,
Speaker 1: I don't like him personally necessarily because he like hunts,
Speaker 1: bore like a jackass.
Speaker 3: And stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like drunk with his friends in the most like
Speaker 1: disrespectful way of murdering a pig.
Speaker 3: I've meant his movies, but yeah, I do like his
Speaker 3: movie sounds like he's a creep too.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go on record saying that, but
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: Uh, yeah, those movies are okay. And then I guess, uh,
Speaker 3: what's his name? Don Cheatle a little bit in Ocean's eleven. Sure,
Speaker 3: he did a little bit of.
Speaker 1: That, right, And I mean like it's code to Americans,
Speaker 1: it's oh, there's like a criminal, a British criminal, right,
Speaker 1: that's all that means these days?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. In movies, it's definitely like all
Speaker 3: of those are criminal, criminal people in the movie.
Speaker 1: But they're like, you know, kind of slick, cool criminals
Speaker 1: that like boil leather coats and stuff like that, not
Speaker 1: dumb criminals that were like football jerseys or anything like that.
Speaker 1: They're like, you know, smooth criminals. That's I think what
Speaker 1: I was looking for. Yeah, but this idea of associating
Speaker 1: it with Cockney is not necessarily associating it with criminals.
Speaker 1: It's more associated with like lower class, working class, less educated, definitely,
Speaker 1: not the aristocracy over in Britain.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or the upper class.
Speaker 1: Sure, And that by speaking with a Cockney accent, or
Speaker 1: more to the point, using Cockney rhyming slang, you could
Speaker 1: really differentiate yourself to it as a point of pride,
Speaker 1: like you were speaking like your group. You're in group,
Speaker 1: which was at the time Cockney. But the big surprise
Speaker 1: to all this is it's really possible and even probable
Speaker 1: that it wasn't the Cockney that came up with this
Speaker 1: rhyming slang, that it was somebody else altogether.
Speaker 3: Maybe who knows? Should we say what it is?
Speaker 1: No, not for the rest of the podcast.
Speaker 3: Cockney rhyming slang. It wasn't even very clearly defined in
Speaker 3: this piece. Okay, did do you think it was? It's
Speaker 3: in there, Okay. You got to just kind of separate
Speaker 3: the wheat from the chaff. So it is a two
Speaker 3: word phrase. It is a slang phrase consisting of two
Speaker 3: words or the last word of that phrase rhymes with
Speaker 3: the original word. And it can be and I think
Speaker 3: the best way to do this is just to throw
Speaker 3: out a few no, no, keep describing well, the two
Speaker 3: word phrase. It can be. It can be a lot
Speaker 3: of things. It can be a person's name, it can
Speaker 3: be just something random. It can be a place, could
Speaker 3: be a place, It could be a lot of things.
Speaker 1: It can be anything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, I guess it can be m But shall
Speaker 3: we illustrate it through.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a second part to it too, Ok, the
Speaker 1: second part, and this is very important. The two word
Speaker 1: phrase that you're using to that where the second word
Speaker 1: rhymes with the word you're actually saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the original word, the original word thank.
Speaker 1: You, usually has nothing to do with it. There's no metaphor,
Speaker 1: there's no connection, there's no nothing, there's no there's no
Speaker 1: context to it. It's supposed to just be random or
Speaker 1: in most cases it is just random words, right, one
Speaker 1: of which rhymes with the word you're replacing.
Speaker 3: And to further complicate things, Sure, in a lot of cases,
Speaker 3: and no one knows why. Sometimes this happens, and sometimes
Speaker 3: it doesn't a lot of times that one of the
Speaker 3: words of the two word phrase is dropped yep, and
Speaker 3: then you're just left with the one word which doesn't
Speaker 3: even rhyme with the original word anymore. Right.
Speaker 1: That's I mean, that's probably the best description of cockney
Speaker 1: rhyming slaying anyone's ever given.
Speaker 3: So I think we should illustrate it with a couple
Speaker 3: of examples. I pulled some from from some thing called
Speaker 3: the Internet.
Speaker 1: Here here's one, the the tip and tet. That's how
Speaker 1: long it took me to come up.
Speaker 3: With that tip and tet for the Internet.
Speaker 1: But in ten years it'll just be called the tip.
Speaker 1: I'm going to log onto the tip Governor.
Speaker 3: So let's say your word was, and this was in
Speaker 3: Ocean's eleven, specifically, trouble is the word that you're trying
Speaker 3: to say. Cockney rhyming slang for trouble is Barney rubble awesome,
Speaker 3: And so you would say you're making a bit of
Speaker 3: the Bonnie rubbled again.
Speaker 1: Right when somebody that was kind of who was.
Speaker 3: That making a bit of Bonnie rubble? Not the see
Speaker 3: I already did it wrong.
Speaker 1: No, but I think that like a real person to
Speaker 1: an American for sure. Oh yeah, I can't, I can't.
Speaker 1: I'll shout it out later.
Speaker 3: Man, I finally did a good one. We just I
Speaker 3: just don't know who.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't a Cockney person, is okay.
Speaker 3: Another example for Queen, they would use the term baked bean.
Speaker 3: Look it is on TV, it's the baked bean, right,
Speaker 3: and that's the queen. Or in the case of one
Speaker 3: that's been dropped, what does ed use here? Bees and honey?
Speaker 1: That one is not dropped for money?
Speaker 3: Oh okay? But which one was apples and pears for stairs? Right?
Speaker 1: So you would say I'm going to go up the
Speaker 1: apple and stairs apples and pears? Oh man, let me
Speaker 1: retake this. Everybody. You would say, I'm going to go
Speaker 1: up the apples and pears to go get my wallet
Speaker 1: to pay for this pizza, or something to that effect.
Speaker 1: But then over time people drop the pears, and so
Speaker 1: now the word for stairs in Cockney rhyming slang is
Speaker 1: just apples, which, if you're just standing there on the
Speaker 1: outside like a normal American bloke, sure, by the way,
Speaker 1: it means person. You have no idea why this person
Speaker 1: just called stairs apples. You got what they were saying,
Speaker 1: because the context is there, you're going up the apples
Speaker 1: to get your wallet to pay for the pizza. But
Speaker 1: why would you just say that? Did you did you
Speaker 1: hit your head? Is there something wrong with you? What's
Speaker 1: the problem? Why would you just call that apples? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why it's so confounding. But the great thing about
Speaker 1: cockney rhyming slang, and in particular the great thing about
Speaker 1: researching cockney rhyming slang, is you learn how you get
Speaker 1: from apples to stairs, and then it makes sense. Sometimes yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true, it's not always.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sometimes there's uh, it's it's not documented, which Ed
Speaker 3: points out as one of the problems. Sometimes you can
Speaker 3: draw the line the through line, but because it's not documented,
Speaker 3: and sometimes these things take years and years to morph
Speaker 3: into its final version. Right unless you unless you're you know,
Speaker 3: on the uh, what would you call streets on the door?
Speaker 3: Now on the streets, then you wouldn't know. But I
Speaker 3: don't know what streets is. You can it just makes
Speaker 3: stuff up, Like there's real words.
Speaker 1: On the drums and beats, so got the drums.
Speaker 3: Right, but they probably have a word for streets. Like
Speaker 3: that's the whole point. You can't just make anything up
Speaker 3: but the but you could if it hasn't been taken yet.
Speaker 1: Sure. But also that's the other thing about cockney rhyming
Speaker 1: slang is it evolves, right, so old celebrities that no
Speaker 1: one even knows about anymore fall away to new celebrities
Speaker 1: whose name also rhyme with you know whatever word you're saying.
Speaker 3: Right, I thought you meant old celebrities who maybe used
Speaker 3: to talk this way like Michael Kaine.
Speaker 1: No, he's never said any rhyming slang in his life.
Speaker 3: Of course, you got to see the movie Alfie.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's who it was. It might have been Michael Kane.
Speaker 3: I don't take that Michael Kaine. I think it was.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, Yeah, thank you, I'm glad
Speaker 1: you did it.
Speaker 3: Noel always says a good joke is to say Michael
Speaker 3: Kain in the correct accent, say the words my cocaine.
Speaker 1: And it sounds like Michael Kaine saying it.
Speaker 3: Then it sounds like the correct accent for Michael Kaine.
Speaker 1: Right, my cocaine.
Speaker 3: Well, you just blew that one out.
Speaker 1: You gotta set me up in the future. Now you
Speaker 1: haven't recorded seeing my cocaine.
Speaker 3: Well there's I've got it two ways now.
Speaker 1: Man cocaine.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing, my cocaine. That's my cocaine. That's pretty good,
Speaker 3: Michael Caine. It is good. You're right, Noel, you just
Speaker 3: got to say it the right way and not like
Speaker 3: a robot Josh. So here's one of the things that
Speaker 3: sort of confounding if you want to look up a
Speaker 3: like a glossary and say, well, here's what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna learn Cockney rhyming slang. So for my trip
Speaker 3: to England, I'm really you know, I'm really in with everybody.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 3: First of all, bad idea. Second of all, it's it
Speaker 3: can be very localized and the accents are all different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so even people in London who who all use well,
Speaker 1: people in London don't really do. But the people who
Speaker 1: use Cockney rhyming slang in London might not even agree
Speaker 1: on what word means.
Speaker 3: What. I'm just picturing all the people walking around England
Speaker 3: laughing their arses off.
Speaker 1: Oh, I can't wait to get to that one.
Speaker 3: As we stumble through this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Ed had a really good example of why there's no
Speaker 1: codification of the Cockney rhyming slang. He said that when
Speaker 1: people are creating a language, especially informal ones like slang,
Speaker 1: they don't write it all down. Quote, dear Diary referred
Speaker 1: to my house as a cat and mouse today because
Speaker 1: it rhymed. We all had a good laugh.
Speaker 3: Might try just calling it cat tomorrow and see how
Speaker 3: it goes. It is it sounds funny, but that's that's
Speaker 3: how it works. Can you stumbling across a diary that
Speaker 3: said that? And here's the other thing too, is there
Speaker 3: are cases where there is a little bit of a
Speaker 3: reflection of the original word. And the example that it
Speaker 3: gives here is twist. Yeah, like to call a woman
Speaker 3: a twist, which I don't know if that's a derogatory
Speaker 3: or not, or just some weird slang that no one
Speaker 3: uses anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't think so, although I don't know. So yeah,
Speaker 1: these are also the people who use the C word
Speaker 1: like it's nothing.
Speaker 4: Well, I can say fanny, oh man, I can't wait
Speaker 4: to go back there, which we're gonna do soonest right,
Speaker 4: I'd love to do in twenty twenty maybe yeah, all right.
Speaker 3: Uh so twist came from twist and twirl, which meant girl,
Speaker 3: which is uh they were talking about like dancing with
Speaker 3: a girl twisting and twirling in a nightclub.
Speaker 1: Let's say, so there is some connection in that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so girl ended up becoming twist, so that sort
Speaker 3: of makes sense.
Speaker 1: There's another one called on your Todd after a guy
Speaker 1: named Todd Sloane, and it means on your own right
Speaker 1: and The thing is is like On your Todd, it
Speaker 1: makes sense Sloan rhymes with own. It doesn't have to
Speaker 1: have any connection, but that one actually does. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: Todd Sloan was a famous jockey in the nineteenth century.
Speaker 3: Like horse jockey, yes, okay, what other kind is there?
Speaker 3: Disc jockeys?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, sure. So his book, his memoir, was called
Speaker 1: Todd Sloane by himself, which is weird to refer to
Speaker 1: yourself in third person for your memoir, But there was
Speaker 1: a line in it that apparently east Enders in London
Speaker 1: like really picked up, I was left alone by those
Speaker 1: I never ceased to grieve for, And so like the
Speaker 1: idea of being alone or on your own became synonymous
Speaker 1: with Todd Sloane. His name just happened to rhyme with that.
Speaker 1: So it's one of those rare ones where there is
Speaker 1: a connection to it, and also rare chuck in that
Speaker 1: this is a nineteenth century horse jockey and still today
Speaker 1: On Your Todd is recognized as on your.
Speaker 3: Own, whereas a lot of people probably have no idea.
Speaker 1: Exactly from who he is. And when that happens that
Speaker 1: frequently that person gets moved out for potentially another celebrity
Speaker 1: or another word that's a little more understandable. Recognized another
Speaker 1: new jockey to people today, Right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: Which can you name one?
Speaker 1: Nope?
Speaker 3: Nope, all right, maybe we should take a break and
Speaker 3: we'll talk about some of the other some other examples
Speaker 3: after this message.
Speaker 5: Salvation, no sevision, no.
Speaker 3: Okay, we're back. Jerry just opened the loudest sandwich in
Speaker 3: the history of the world. Really, she's like, hold on
Speaker 3: a minute, and it's sounded like it was in a
Speaker 3: space blanket.
Speaker 1: It was like Ernest opens a sandwich over here.
Speaker 3: That was a good one. Not as good as part two.
Speaker 1: No, I saw that first one in the theater.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So here's some other examples that have Some of
Speaker 3: them have sort of stayed over in England and some
Speaker 3: of have found their way, Like apparently the term put
Speaker 3: up your dukes. Oh, I didn't know the cockney rhyming slang,
Speaker 3: so and I didn't write down where dukes came from.
Speaker 3: But that's where it was originally a Cockney rhyming slang term. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because so you would think it had to do with
Speaker 3: fists or something. Duke's for fists. Why didn't I write
Speaker 3: that down?
Speaker 1: Okay, But so That's another really important point to say
Speaker 1: about Cockney rhyming slang. It's frequently rhyming slang based on slang,
Speaker 1: so the word it's replacing is the slang word to
Speaker 1: begin with. So who knows what the dukes actually rhymed
Speaker 1: with at any point?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good point. So first of all, I've
Speaker 3: never heard this blowing a raspberry. What have you heard
Speaker 3: of that? Yeah? That's tooting out of your that what.
Speaker 1: I just did is as much blowing a raspberry as
Speaker 1: actually farting.
Speaker 3: Oh really? Yeah? Okay, well I've heard of giving someone
Speaker 3: a raspberry, like, okay, that's the same thing. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: Well apparently that's derived from raspberry tart slang for fart.
Speaker 1: Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 3: It's pretty great?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that one is one of the rare ones
Speaker 1: I love talking about exceptions. Do you know that?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Sure, that's one of the rare ones that made its
Speaker 1: way to America because of right, everyone but you knows
Speaker 1: what blowing a raspberry is?
Speaker 3: I guess I've never heard of the term blowing, but
Speaker 3: giving someone a raspberry same thing.
Speaker 1: I found two more. One is controversial. It's not set
Speaker 1: in stone, but it's as good an explanation as any
Speaker 1: get down to brass tacks.
Speaker 3: I saw that one too.
Speaker 1: That's a stand in for facts. Let's get down to
Speaker 1: the bear facts.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 1: Possibly it's not right done. One that is one hundred percent,
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, is bread.
Speaker 3: I saw that too. For money. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In America, bread and honey became just bread, right, and
Speaker 1: it caught on here and caught on again just now.
Speaker 3: Well, bees and honey though, was also for money, right.
Speaker 3: Is that just one of the local depends on where
Speaker 3: you are things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yeah, but in America, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we use bread. Everybody calls it bread.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I didn't know that that'd come back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, somebody wrote in to say it had come back.
Speaker 1: Let's get this bread right.
Speaker 3: I guess. So that's over familiar.
Speaker 1: You need to spend more time on Reddit.
Speaker 3: Here's another one. Dog and bone stands in for phone,
Speaker 3: call me on the dog and bone. Sure, And then
Speaker 3: Ed says there may be some kind of correlation between
Speaker 3: one silver words that lead off that phrase staying in
Speaker 3: the phrase, But I don't There are so many exceptions.
Speaker 3: I don't know if there is a rule exactly.
Speaker 1: And I think that's really, this is worth saying. We
Speaker 1: looked all over the place I know ed did too,
Speaker 1: for straight up linguistic dissertations and papers on cockney rhyming slange. Right,
Speaker 1: it's not there. No, it's just treated as fun and hilarious,
Speaker 1: even though it is its own made up language that's
Speaker 1: ever evolving. Still live is around. We'll talk about the
Speaker 1: history in a minute for one hundred and fifty plus years.
Speaker 1: But apparently no linguist has ever thought enough of it
Speaker 1: to sit down and write a genuine paper about it.
Speaker 1: So we couldn't find that. But the one thing that
Speaker 1: really occurred to me was in looking into it. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it could ever be explained. I think
Speaker 1: it's the result of so many individual decisions and then
Speaker 1: collective agreements to take up and go along with those decisions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and those.
Speaker 1: Agreements can be totally undermined by a new individual decision
Speaker 1: that catches on how could you possibly map and even
Speaker 1: understand all or explain all of that different stuff. But
Speaker 1: even though we can't explain it, once you start to
Speaker 1: learn how it works, it's understandable. So you can't explain,
Speaker 1: but you can't understand it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's like I always wonder with any kind
Speaker 3: of slang or like who makes the stuff up, who
Speaker 3: sets the rules. It's probably just the kind of thing
Speaker 3: that just starts on a playground and spreads from there
Speaker 3: and gets codified unofficially. Yep. Then everyone's using it, sure,
Speaker 3: but I wonder if they're I don't know. You can't
Speaker 3: trace this stuff, which is sort of frustrating as researchers,
Speaker 3: because I think we like to pinpoint things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it I mean people have tried to trace
Speaker 1: it and they've come awfully close.
Speaker 3: Well, we'll get to that in a minute. Okay, I
Speaker 3: want to go over some more of these. All right,
Speaker 3: I want to get up on my plates and get out.
Speaker 1: Of here your meat, your plates of meat.
Speaker 3: Plates of meat, which is feet or between podcasts, you
Speaker 3: probably have to go take a rattle. Yep, rattle and hiss,
Speaker 3: rattle and hiss like a snake. You got it, And
Speaker 3: that's means peep, right exactly. And then I guess we
Speaker 3: should talk about ars. Yeah, sure, that's the one you
Speaker 3: were pretty excited about.
Speaker 1: Yes, because it goes even so much farther than urs
Speaker 1: even Yeah, it's pretty convoluted. Okay, you want to take
Speaker 1: it no, go ahead, Okay, so ours the very famous
Speaker 1: named for ass in the UK. Everybody knows that. Sure,
Speaker 1: it's actually it comes from Aristotle, which you're like, well,
Speaker 1: what does that have to do with ass? Well, let
Speaker 1: me tell you. Aristotle is Cockney rhyming slang for bottle. Again,
Speaker 1: the question is what does that have to do with ass? Well.
Speaker 1: Originally the Cockney rhyming slang word for ass was bottle
Speaker 1: and glass, right, became shortened to bottle. Somebody came along
Speaker 1: and rhymed Aristotle with it. That got shortened to aris
Speaker 1: and then to Arsey goes even further than that. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw one plaster for ars plaster of Paris, Aris, Aristotle, bottle,
Speaker 1: bottle and glass ass. That's how deep that Cockney rhyming
Speaker 1: slang has covered up the collective ass of the UK.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and again it's like, why you can't You can't
Speaker 3: put that in a book and explain it in any
Speaker 3: kind of way that makes sense. You got to do
Speaker 3: it on a podcast or a paper. You just have
Speaker 3: to accept it. It's like, that's how it happened on
Speaker 3: the street. I think that's a really good way on
Speaker 3: the streets to the east end. Right, right in your cocaine. No,
Speaker 3: not your cocaine. They do have. For all that we're
Speaker 3: saying about how don't look at glossaries and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: they do have dictionaries that you can buy. If you're
Speaker 3: a total square, I would guess it's probably not a
Speaker 3: cool thing to do. That's like saying, you know, I
Speaker 3: want to become a rapper, so let me get a
Speaker 3: rhyming dictionary. Although I did have a rhyming dictionary at
Speaker 3: one point.
Speaker 1: Well, rhyming it's not, you know, just limited to kochne.
Speaker 1: We know rhyme, Yeah, which is one assertion ed makes
Speaker 1: for why it's popular or so long lasting.
Speaker 3: Well, should we talk about some of the theories on
Speaker 3: where it originated, because I looked in a bunch of
Speaker 3: places and I don't think I mean, I think calling
Speaker 3: it theory is a little I think they kind of
Speaker 3: know where it came from. They just don't know exactly
Speaker 3: why the campaign point it to like on this day,
Speaker 3: on this in this place.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: But it's not a complete mystery though.
Speaker 1: No, they've got it basically localized to about a one
Speaker 1: and a half mile area of London and basically down
Speaker 1: to the year. It's just exactly where and exactly who's
Speaker 1: in exactly why are the real outstanding questions, which is
Speaker 1: actually a lot of questions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one of the one of the whys was that
Speaker 3: in this one I think doesn't have as much credence now.
Speaker 1: But no, but it's like the most common one.
Speaker 3: Right is that you will hear that it was coded
Speaker 3: language created by criminals to keep the cops confused as
Speaker 3: to what was going on, right, which makes sense in
Speaker 3: one way because it certainly could cause confusion, But it
Speaker 3: also and I think ed makes a pretty good point
Speaker 3: that like, were they, like, were cops just hanging around
Speaker 3: overhearing things like why did they feel like they needed
Speaker 3: to create this whole language? And cops, if they were
Speaker 3: street cops would have figured this stuff out as well,
Speaker 3: you know, because it wouldn't have been that big of
Speaker 3: a secret. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's this guy named Dick Sullivan who wrote an essay
Speaker 1: on the Victorian Web which is actually kind of cool, huh,
Speaker 1: And he said the street cops would have come from
Speaker 1: the same areas and families and neighborhoods that the criminals
Speaker 1: would have, so they would have been raised on this
Speaker 1: rhyming slang anyway. Sure, So it doesn't really hold up
Speaker 1: to scrutiny when you look at it like that. It
Speaker 1: was a intentionally created coded language meant to confuse the cops.
Speaker 3: Right then. That's not to say it nevertheless wasn't associated
Speaker 3: with some kind of criminal underworld East London types.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it almost certainly was taken up by the Cockneys,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't necessarily cock news or criminals who came
Speaker 1: up with this rhyming slang. To begin with.
Speaker 3: There's this guy named John Camden Hotton, and he wrote
Speaker 3: one of the better titled, or at least most directly
Speaker 3: titled books I've ever heard of, Colon No, there's not.
Speaker 1: There are a couple commas though a dictionary of modern slang,
Speaker 1: Can't and vulgar words used at the present day in
Speaker 1: the streets of London, And he has a chapter on
Speaker 1: rhyming slang, and he basically says that it was two
Speaker 1: groups shaunters and patterers, basically traveling salesmen who would stand
Speaker 1: on street corners and hawk their wares and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe pick your pocket while you were trying to buy
Speaker 1: something from them, and that they came up with Cockney
Speaker 1: rhyming slang.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I saw that enough to think that that's
Speaker 3: probably true.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The Schaunters in particular spoken like singing rhyming language,
Speaker 1: so it would.
Speaker 3: Have been a pretty quick evolution. Yeah, I think this
Speaker 3: one makes a lot of sense. Street criers, I mean,
Speaker 3: England and London especially has a long tradition of street
Speaker 3: corner barkers and things like this, right. I remember seeing
Speaker 3: one myself when I traveled there in the nineties and
Speaker 3: I was like, they're still doing this stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It was like a box in the park where you
Speaker 3: can go stand on it, soapbox maybe, I mean that's
Speaker 3: where that came from, right, probably, and just you know,
Speaker 3: shout your piece. Sure, And then I saw guy doing it
Speaker 3: and I thought, what year is this? This is wonderful, right,
Speaker 3: it's fantastic.
Speaker 1: But in particular the Chaunters, they sang and then sold
Speaker 1: penny ballads, sheet music of penny ballads that they would
Speaker 1: write real quick. After somebody famous died or there was
Speaker 1: a train wreck or something, they'd write a ballad about
Speaker 1: it and then be out in the corners selling these things.
Speaker 1: But because they were singing in rhymes and sing song,
Speaker 1: it's a really good bet that these guys were the
Speaker 1: ones who originated rhyming slang, but not necessarily for any
Speaker 1: kind of intentionally coded language, because that same guy, Dick Sullivan, says,
Speaker 1: there's no reason for patterers who sold their you know,
Speaker 1: little gigaws or trinkets or whatever. I love that word,
Speaker 1: or shaunters who were selling these penny ballads. They worked alone.
Speaker 1: There was no need for them to come up with
Speaker 1: a coded.
Speaker 3: Lange would communicate with one another.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in front of a customer who they were ripping off,
Speaker 1: because they didn't need to communicate with one another in
Speaker 1: front of customers.
Speaker 3: Well, I saw that maybe they, you know, could communicate
Speaker 3: with each other when customers were around or something.
Speaker 1: I don't know, right, But the other part of that
Speaker 1: is that it supposedly flies in the face of how
Speaker 1: slang develops, that it's unintentional, right, Like you don't say,
Speaker 1: let's come up with a coded language and here's how
Speaker 1: it works.
Speaker 3: Yeah, even like American teenagers when they have slang that
Speaker 3: their parents don't understand, Like you remember how that stuff went.
Speaker 3: It was something you just heard. You never sat around. Sure,
Speaker 3: I'm hip to that and said, you know, like, hey,
Speaker 3: let's use this other word that our parents won't know
Speaker 3: what it means.
Speaker 1: Right, you know, we'll call it pepsi when we're on
Speaker 1: the phone.
Speaker 3: Okay. There was also the Victorian backslang, which that was
Speaker 3: not cocky rhyming slang. That was just pronouncing words backwards,
Speaker 3: sort of simple yob for boy. Yes.
Speaker 1: But something interesting about that is that it's based on
Speaker 1: the spelling, not the pronunciation, right, which suggests a strong
Speaker 1: degree of literacy, which you would probably not have found
Speaker 1: among at least the powderers, right, probably among the chanters
Speaker 1: because they were writing songs and ballads, so it's possible
Speaker 1: they came up with that too, But they think maybe
Speaker 1: it was Butcher's and Butcher's assistants who came up with backslang.
Speaker 1: Oh really yeah, and actually two confused customers or to
Speaker 1: be able to talk about what price they should charge
Speaker 1: a customer in front of the customer.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So there is like you take all these different pieces
Speaker 1: and you get the current idea and story for cockney
Speaker 1: rhyming slang, but it's actually a bunch of different stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that wasn't really all connected until later on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what it probably also was not was Irish stock workers.
Speaker 3: There was one theory being bandied about that Irish stock
Speaker 3: workers would come over and they would speak in this
Speaker 3: made up rhyming slang, so you know, they could just
Speaker 3: talk among their Irish peers and the people of London
Speaker 3: wouldn't understand them. Not much of this makes any sense
Speaker 3: at all, No, because they don't. I think. Now you
Speaker 3: see it some in Ireland, but for all those years
Speaker 3: that it was prevalent in London, it was not in Ireland.
Speaker 3: Right unless they literally just made it up when they
Speaker 3: came over from Ireland.
Speaker 1: Right, Plus, why would they not just speak Irish in
Speaker 1: front of the English who might not speak it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Or what would that be Gaelic?
Speaker 3: Sure? I think So we're getting so much of this wrong.
Speaker 1: Do you want to take a break in fact check
Speaker 1: everything and maybe just rewind and start over.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's let's get our Wait, what was facts?
Speaker 1: Our brass tacks? That's right, So we got to go
Speaker 1: get our brass straight.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 5: Salvation no selevsion, No, Okay, we're back.
Speaker 1: It's been about thirty minutes since we left you guys.
Speaker 3: We fact checked everything and so far, so good. Yeah,
Speaker 3: this is a perfect podcast. So you said at the beginning,
Speaker 3: you teased out that it might not even have been
Speaker 3: Cockney to begin with. Everything I saw kind of placed
Speaker 3: it in that east. I think they call it Cheapside,
Speaker 3: really area wow, where the cockneys were, but Cockney was also,
Speaker 3: I mean it's also not necessarily specifically one place, right.
Speaker 1: No, But if you're talking about Cockney people, supposedly the
Speaker 1: definition of a Cockney person is someone who was born
Speaker 1: within hearing distance of the bells of Saint Mary Lebaux
Speaker 1: in Cheapside, which was in London. With this guy, John
Speaker 1: Camden Houghton, who was writing in eighteen sixty and placed
Speaker 1: the place the origin of rhyming slang well the fifteen
Speaker 1: years before. So this guy was like on top of
Speaker 1: it as it was happening. Yeah, he placed it at
Speaker 1: a place called Seven Dials, which is like a big
Speaker 1: market place and I think still is, which is a
Speaker 1: mile and a half away from Cheapside, which at the
Speaker 1: time was in Westminster at the time a different town, right,
Speaker 1: So you had City of London and then Westminster, which
Speaker 1: is where seven Dials was. So if if you believe Hoton,
Speaker 1: then it wasn't the Cockney at all who came up
Speaker 1: with that. It was just powders and Shaan tours. That's
Speaker 1: a different word than I said, No, Shawn Tours.
Speaker 3: Well, Cockney has. What that is though, is just sort
Speaker 3: of the working class. I think used to be viewed
Speaker 3: as uneducated, sort of lower class. That may be a
Speaker 3: bit harsh, but if anything, it was not the upper
Speaker 3: crust of British society. You know, the pub the hard
Speaker 3: drinking pubgoers, rub a dub dub goers. Is that pubs?
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is another extent because you go from one
Speaker 1: one syllable pub to rub a dub dub and it
Speaker 1: actually has three rhymes in there. Oh interesting, But that
Speaker 1: is Cockney rhyming slang for pub.
Speaker 3: Well, but the Cockneys were also known for a bit
Speaker 3: more progressive politics, and I think nowadays there can be
Speaker 3: a bit more of a of a pride of like
Speaker 3: a working class pride associated with it.
Speaker 1: I think there was back then too, was there? But
Speaker 1: I think that's one reason also why the Cockney accent
Speaker 1: and Cockney rhyming slang in particular was just treated shabbily
Speaker 1: and looked down on, you know, by the rest of England,
Speaker 1: right because it was supposedly, you know, associated with the
Speaker 1: lower classes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it also found its way to Australia, isn't that right?
Speaker 3: And then somehow on the West Coast of America where
Speaker 3: the Australian version came in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the prisons of the West Coast in the US,
Speaker 1: it was called Australian rhyming slang. So I guess some
Speaker 1: cool guy from Australia showed up and was speaking in Gibberish.
Speaker 1: That just made everyone think I want to do this too, right.
Speaker 3: It's kind of fun to go on YouTube though and
Speaker 3: see some of these, you know, because it's such a
Speaker 3: big thing in England. It's been all over the BBC.
Speaker 3: I watched one episode of the Two Ronnies where this
Speaker 3: priest did a sermon and Cockney rhyming slang. It's very
Speaker 3: funny and one of those sort of you know, eighties
Speaker 3: I guess it was eighties, early eighties. BBC comedies are
Speaker 3: always fun, you know. The production value is not all there.
Speaker 3: The laugh track is it had to have been a
Speaker 3: laugh track. I don't think it was a studio audience,
Speaker 3: although it may have been.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: It was hard to tell. That's during the transition. But
Speaker 3: there were other shows not on Your Nelly and The
Speaker 3: Sweeney and the titles of both of those shows come
Speaker 3: from actual Cockney rhyming slang as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Sweeney is particularly dense. It's short for Sweeney Todd,
Speaker 1: which was rhyming slang for flying Squad, which is a
Speaker 1: particular branch of the Metapolitan Police, kind of like Major Case.
Speaker 1: So the Sweeney was like the Major Case division of
Speaker 1: Metropolitan Police.
Speaker 3: So Nelly comes from the word Nelly Duff, the name
Speaker 3: Nelly Duff, which is apparently just a nonsense name, and
Speaker 3: that rhymes with puff, which means life. So not on
Speaker 3: your Nelly means not on your life. Yeah, clearly it's
Speaker 3: so dense. And then of course things like you mentioned
Speaker 3: the guy Ritchie really brought it into the American consciousness
Speaker 3: in the nineties when he made those two movies, and.
Speaker 1: He brought it into my consciousness. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 1: So there's a really good question, Chuck, that I think
Speaker 1: we need to ask. How is it that in twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen you and I are analyzing a hyper local slang
Speaker 1: that came out of the eighteen forties in some very
Speaker 1: specific part of London, Like, how is Cogney rhyming slang
Speaker 1: still around after all this year? All these years, when
Speaker 1: so much other slang has come and gone over the
Speaker 1: years that we have no idea ever even existed. What's
Speaker 1: the same power of Cockney rhyming slang?
Speaker 3: Do you expect me to have an answer? Yeap, I
Speaker 3: don't have one about why it's stuck around other than people.
Speaker 3: You know, if people don't still use it, then it
Speaker 3: would have fallen by the wayside. So clearly it's popular. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it seems to have gotten and maybe this is just
Speaker 3: my recognition of it, but it seems to have gotten
Speaker 3: more popular in the last twenty years.
Speaker 1: What I was reading is that, especially in the UK,
Speaker 1: it's popularity is based on kitchiness. Yeah, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of like hipster irony. Like the Cockney rhyming word for
Speaker 1: wife is trouble and strife. So I imagine that probably doesn't
Speaker 1: go over very well if you don't call your wife
Speaker 1: that with a smile like you're joking, right, kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So I think that's the that's the current use of it.
Speaker 1: But I mean it's it was used and it's still
Speaker 1: in use, and there's still new words like passen becks
Speaker 1: is is the word for sex?
Speaker 3: Oh? Really, that's pretty new. Apparently Britney spears can be
Speaker 3: used for beers, which is great. And I saw one
Speaker 3: Nelson mandela. If you're getting a Stella artois, yeah, this
Speaker 3: is a Nelson Mandela for stella.
Speaker 1: So the fact that it's still evolving, yeah, still being
Speaker 1: contributed to new like these existing words are being replaced
Speaker 1: with new ones. And the fact that it's one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty years old. I mean, there's got to be
Speaker 1: some thing to it that makes it more more. I
Speaker 1: think it's that it's just so hard to understand until
Speaker 1: someone explains it to you.
Speaker 3: I think it's fun. I think it's a few fold.
Speaker 3: It's fun. It's fun. It's fun. It's there is a
Speaker 3: code to it, and part of the fun is it
Speaker 3: I think his friends maybe trying to make something up
Speaker 3: and having it catch on. Sure, it's almost like a game,
Speaker 3: like a word game.
Speaker 1: Yeah a bit?
Speaker 3: Did you just go a bit? And then the the
Speaker 3: the unique britishness of it all, Yeah, has a lot
Speaker 3: to do with it. I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because even though it got exported to Australia, no
Speaker 1: one associates it with Australia. Sorry Australia.
Speaker 3: But if we like if it really took off in
Speaker 3: America with hipsters. People in Britain would probably be like,
Speaker 3: forget it, it's flown the it's flat. Well, what is
Speaker 3: flown the coop? What could you say for coop?
Speaker 1: It's it's uh on the Gwyneth and the goop. So
Speaker 1: the Gwyneth, it's flown the Gwyneth. Okay, we'll see that.
Speaker 3: One might catch on.
Speaker 1: I can do this all day. Some of them aren't
Speaker 1: so good, but other ones are gems.
Speaker 3: The why of it all though, to begin with, I
Speaker 3: thought was interesting. I asked you why, and you said
Speaker 3: you don't know. You said, why is it sticking around?
Speaker 3: I mean, why did it start to begin with?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Okay, and I think you know. Ed makes a pretty
Speaker 3: good point that they're just rhyming. Period has always been
Speaker 3: a thing, even in the state, and he uses examples
Speaker 3: like see you later, alligator after a whild Crocodisle, Like
Speaker 3: I remember saying that when I was a kid. I
Speaker 3: just said that yesterday, did you really? Yeah, see you later, alligator. Yeah.
Speaker 3: There's just something about it. Maybe it's the childlike nature
Speaker 3: of it that's fun. It makes old people feel young again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I mean, like it takes something boring and
Speaker 1: adds a little flair to it, you know.
Speaker 3: Or like Yiddish, like fancy shmancy. I love that people
Speaker 3: say that kind of stuff all the time. I never
Speaker 3: associated it with Yiddish, but it absolutely is, isn't it.
Speaker 3: I think so. I mean, not outright Yiddish, but Yiddish culture.
Speaker 3: I think so. But yeah, it is strange. It is
Speaker 3: strange that it started to begin with, and like I
Speaker 3: wish there was a definite like person zero that we
Speaker 3: could point to. Yeah, and you know, on the streets
Speaker 3: of London and someone thought it was funny and then
Speaker 3: they told two friends and so on and so on.
Speaker 1: Yep, really it's not. Richie started it and Patsy and
Speaker 1: Ralph Mouth took it from there and it just kept
Speaker 1: spreading like wildfire.
Speaker 3: You got anything else? Yes?
Speaker 1: I found a twenty twelve survey by the Museum of
Speaker 1: London and it set off a bunch of articles about
Speaker 1: how Cockney Ryeman's slang is dying. But if you read
Speaker 1: the article, it says that forty percent of respondents believe
Speaker 1: it was dying, which means sixty percent don't believe it's dying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, And then they go on to talk about
Speaker 1: how there's all these new words that are being replaced
Speaker 1: and added, so I don't think it's going anywhere. I
Speaker 1: think it's usage just become more ironic and everything. But
Speaker 1: it's still like most most Britains still understand porky pies
Speaker 1: means lies. Yeah, like don't tell me any porky's, give
Speaker 1: it to me straight.
Speaker 3: Well, I think it was good we were able to
Speaker 3: sit here and have a good rabbit in pork sure
Speaker 3: or torque. Apparently rabbit and pork is talk.
Speaker 1: But oh, that was one other thing the studying this.
Speaker 1: There's reasons people study this. It gives you a window
Speaker 1: into the past.
Speaker 3: For example, like pronunciations yes, uh huh.
Speaker 1: So farthing used to be a Camden well farthings like
Speaker 1: a quarter penny that they don't use anymore, but it
Speaker 1: used to be called a Camden after Camden gardens, which
Speaker 1: tells linguists if they would get off their dusts and
Speaker 1: study this thing that they used to pronounce farthings as fardins. Oh, interesting,
Speaker 1: or at least it's something that rhyme closely to gardens.
Speaker 1: But that's why people study this allegedly amazing. Well, if
Speaker 1: you want to know more about Cockney rhyming slang. Get
Speaker 1: yourself a great Cockney rhyming dictionary and go to England
Speaker 1: and just start talking up a storm.
Speaker 3: They love that stuff. They love they can't get enough.
Speaker 3: They'll treat you like one of their own. That's right.
Speaker 1: And since we said that it's time for listener mate.
Speaker 3: Satanic Panic, can we just re release that as a
Speaker 3: Saturday select? I think that was Was that one of
Speaker 3: your picture one of mine? I don't know, I'm not sure,
Speaker 3: but it was. It was a good pick for October.
Speaker 3: One of our favorite episodes. Yeah, I think of all time.
Speaker 3: And we got a lot of people emailing again about
Speaker 3: it after listening to it for the first time. Hey, guys,
Speaker 3: listened to Satan and Panic and realized had a story
Speaker 3: about that. I grew up in a suburb of California.
Speaker 3: By the teenageers, i'd become what you might call goth.
Speaker 3: Wore black spike, jewelry, dark makeup and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: My town had a ten pm curfew, and one night
Speaker 3: when I was fourteen, my friends and I were walking
Speaker 3: home after curfew got pulled over by the cops. They
Speaker 3: questioned and searched us, then called the parents. Except for
Speaker 3: mine I'm not sure why, but the officer insisted on
Speaker 3: driving me home. Once there, he also demanded to come
Speaker 3: inside my home. I was too scared to argue, so
Speaker 3: I let him in. He went to my bedroom. This
Speaker 3: is getting creepy. I was really worried about where this
Speaker 3: was headed. He went to my bedroom, which was full
Speaker 3: of posters of Marilyn Manson and the Crow and stuff
Speaker 3: like that, and he started going through my things. What
Speaker 3: he told me he was concerned because Satanists are out
Speaker 3: there and that if I wasn't careful, I'd find myself sacrificed.
Speaker 3: He told me there were rituals and barns that require virgins,
Speaker 3: and I should rethink my lifestyle before I got raped
Speaker 3: or hurt. I thanked him for his concern, and I
Speaker 3: quietly said everything nice that I could to get him
Speaker 3: out of my house before he woke up my father situation.
Speaker 3: This happened in two thousand. After hearing your episode today,
Speaker 3: it's hard to believe that the residue of the Satanic
Speaker 3: panic would still be around then, especially in the police force.
Speaker 3: Just to be clear, the suburb I lived in had
Speaker 3: very little crime, so the officer was very surprising. Indeed,
Speaker 3: my boys and I love your show. I recommend it
Speaker 3: to everyone. Nice. That is from Lisa G. There's really something, Lisa,
Speaker 3: I know, kind of disturbing. Yeah, Like I don't know
Speaker 3: if that cop was a good guy. I don't know.
Speaker 3: It started to go down a pretty creepy road there,
Speaker 3: it really did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe he was just looking for some pod or something.
Speaker 1: He was just coming up with a cover story.
Speaker 3: I got to get in your room and go through
Speaker 3: your stuff. You got any weed? Yeah? Really? I was
Speaker 3: relieved to know that it just ended in the cop leaving.
Speaker 3: But yeah, agreed, he went above and beyond and not
Speaker 3: in a good way.
Speaker 1: Right. Well, thanks a lot, Lisa, and glad that you
Speaker 1: made it through that and that you and your boys
Speaker 1: are listening to Stuff you Should Know. Could you get
Speaker 1: any cooler? I don't think so. Well, if you want
Speaker 1: to be cool like Lisa Ander boys, you can get
Speaker 1: in touch with this by going on to Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know, checking out our social links there, and as always,
Speaker 1: send us an email to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
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