Cockney Rhyming Slang

Children should not use rhyming slang in front of their parents; it might confuse them and that would never do, would it? (Nudge, nudge; wink, wink).

"Hello me old china, got a cock linnet? Come in and shut the Roger. 'Ere look at that dickory! Take off your weasel, loosen your daisies and take the weight off your plates while I get on the dog to the trouble, else I'll be brown bread. 'Ere, my bath bun spun me a jackanory, but what he really wanted was my jam jar so he could half inch some oily rags. He'll be in Dingley, if he's not careful."

Now, how much of that did you understand? Possibly not very much! There were more than a few examples of Cockney rhyming slang in there. A 'Cockney' is most accurately someone born within the sound of Bow bells and the name may have derived from the Middle English word 'cokeney', a cock's egg. Although there may be another derivation entirely.

The origin of rhyming slang is equally hard to pin down. One possibility is that it started as a form of communication between London street traders that their potential customers couldn't understand. It often consits of a phrase (rather than a single word) the last part of which rhymes with the intended word. It can get even more confusing, for someone not in the know, when only the first word of the phrase is used.

The list below is by no means comprehensive. Since I'm aiming for a family audience I've omitted most of the vulgarisms. I've also tried to spare you the idiosyncrasies of London English pronunciation as in: Charley = Charley Prescott = waistcoat. You need to pronounce Prescott as press-kit and waistcoat as wess-kit. If you don't speak British English you may still be a little lost if I don't explain that, in some parts of the world, a waistcoat is called a vest (I don't know what you call what we call a vest).

Hover your mouse over the word in the left column; it may give you a clue. Hover your mouse over the question marks and the intended word will be revealsd.

By the way, the picture at the top is a puzzle. Hover your mouse over it to see the second clue. Third clue, it's one of the words in the list. If you must have another clue, then the answer's at the bottom of the page.