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