![]() Listen carefully and you might hear them on Roman Road – but make sure you know your stuff – you wouldn’t want to get caught handing over a deep sea diver (fiver) when you really need a cock and hen (tenner) to cover the bill. ![]() So while you might not use Cockney rhyming slang when tapping your contactless card on the bus, or while using your fingerprint to make a transaction on your iPhone, these codified phrases are still bouncing around in pockets of the East End. With almost 250 responses to our Facebook callouts, it’s clear that East Enders still love to hear our native lingo. ![]() To settle the score we put it to our Facebook followers to find out which, if any, phrases for money have endured in our increasingly cashless society. With no obvious revival in Cockney rhyming slang since then, many have pronounced the vernacular to be all but to be brown bread (dead). It emerged that just 8% used the terms in everyday speech. Is the tradition dying out? A study carried out by the Museum of London in 2012 surveyed 2000 people, half of them Londoners, about their understanding and use of Cockney rhyming slang. A type of ‘in-the-know’ lingo, aiming to exclude or mislead anyone from outside of the Cockney bubble. ‘Nelson Eddy’s’ is Cockney rhyming slang for readies (pound notes), and ‘big bag of sand’ means a thousand pounds (a grand).īoth of these phrases belong to the vernacular of Cockney rhyming slang, a code-like way of speaking that originated in East London in the mid-19th Century.ĭue to the nature of this East End jargon which is primarily spoken, there are very few written records of its roots, but it was supposedly the language of stallholders and criminals. If your answer is the latter, then let us translate. Who else could do with a big bag of sand to pay their energy bill? Or perhaps just a few Nelson Eddy’s in their pocket for when they next go down the dub? Or maybe you don’t have a scooby what you’ve just read? Why not stop off at the Olympic Stadium in Stratford to go up the ArcelorMittal Orbit, or stop off for some shopping at Westfield.We put it to the people of East London to find out whether Cockney rhyming slang for money can survive in our cashless society. If you fancy a trip out into East London, The London Pass has got lots of great attractions for you to visit whilst you embark on this cockney rhyming slang adventure. To tell a porky is something everyone’s been accused of as a child – and perhaps even older! A fib or a lie, to tell a pork pie means to fabricate something and has to be one of the all-time favourite phrases in the cockney rhyming slang dictionary! There's plenty more of these cultural words to be found so fill your boots with as much as you can while you're in East London. This was a colloquial term for housewives who would find themselves temporarily out of pocket, and without any money. Her eyes would be described as Minces, an even more slang term from the original mince pies. This is a term used widely in London even to this day, usually to describe a girl's features. ![]() The kettle used to boil on the hob of a stove… hence the rhyme. The term means watch, which stemmed from a 'fob' watch which was a pocket watch attached to the body with a small chain. This is a confusing phrase as it doesn’t rhyme with its modern-day meaning. We’re not sure where this one came from other than it rhymes and is a brilliant one to slip into everyday conversation! Kettle and hob = watch Ok so not quite an exact rhyme, but, as a duck would dive under the surface of the water, this phrase means something the same, as in to remove oneself from the situation and to hide. This phrase probably originated in Smithfield Meat Market, near Farringdon. The butcher's hook was the double-ended hook that hung up in butchers to display the meats they had on show. In this case, there are two meanings a bottle would hold the contents – ie, like police would in jail, or the stopper would prevent someone or something from happening. The copper is a slang term in itself for a policeman. This is a more cryptic literal link, referring to bees that produce honey which can translate into workers producing money – the result of both is sweet! Bottle and stopper = copper This might have roots in the traders' stalls who stacked their fruit and vegetables in "steps and stairs" in front of their stands in an arresting display. ![]() To make it easier for you – here’s a list of the top 10 classic rhyming slang that you might hear if ever you venture East past Hackney. To practice, just watch an episode of Only Fools & Horses, or Eastenders, to get a feel for it… Apples and Pears = stairs ![]()
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