HOW TO WRITE WITH ACCENTS, DIALECT, SLANG, COLLOQUALISM, AND ETHNICITY

How to speak British, course 202

Cockney Rhyming Slang:

Although the words are standard English, even in pronunciation–pretty much–translation takes a thorough knowledge of English lexicon, history, geography, and the London Eastside. The historic native wit of the east end community has an interesting logic to its phrases. Here are some examples of phrases, their translation (meaning), and origins, in alphabetical order. By way of disclaimer, this list only scratches the surface of the fascinating dialect.

  • apples and pears=stairs. It is a reference to gradation as in the costermonger displaying his fruit and vegetables graded in “steps and stairs”.
  • army and navy=gravy, a plentiful part of most meals on the East side.
  • basin of gravy=baby, softness of the foods fed to babies. (no reference to colors produced by babies).
  • bees and honey=money, bees are the symbols of work. The product—money—is sweet, hence “honey”.
  • borrow and beg=egg, a fresh start in life during WW II, and the period of British food-rationing.
  • bottle and stopper=copper/policeman, references to corked bottles with a stopper and an encloser.
  • box of toys=noise, a nod to the noise of Christmas time.
  • brown bread=dead
  • bubble bath=to laugh
  • coals and coke=broke, both products came in large blocks that required breaking apart before use.
  • collar and cuff=puff, neat dress, as in “powder puff”, not necessarily a compliment.
  • cop a flowerpot/cop it hot=get into serious trouble. Like being struck in the head by a flowerpot falling from above.
  • crowded space=suitcase, an item often stolen from packed railway stations during holiday seasons.
  • cut and carried=married, wife is cut off from parental support and provided for by her husband.
  • derry and Toms=bombs, can mean a famous London store, or—more frequently—to being “derried” which is to be disliked or discriminated against because of being from Derry Down in Ireland.
  • duck and dive=to hide like a duck hidden beneath the pond’s surface, but more often to duck a blow by in a fight by a quick dropping movement.
  • in and out=snout/nose
  • light and dark=park, i.e., London County Council’s notice that a bell was rung and the gates locked at dusk.
  • lump of ice=advice; which to receive sometimes can be very cold comfort.
  • lump of lead=the head; particularly in reference to the morning after the night before.
  • lump of school=fool; the market stall holders believe that the sooner the boy stops reading books and gains practical experience the better.
  • merry-go-round=pound (in the sterling sense). Referring to the old saw that “money was made round to go round”.
  • oily rag=a fag, i.e. a cigarette and referring to its soiled state when smokers are employed in a mucky profession. 
  • penny-come-quick=a trick, especially, a trick of confidence which if successful made for easy money.
  • pimple and blotch=Scotch–for which a long indulgence can have a considerable effect upon the skin.
  • short of a sheet=in the street, implying a situation of penury and hence the lack of a bed.
  • weep and wail–a tale: used exclusively in reference to a beggar’s tale.  

•yet to be=free. In the sense both of without cost, implying a part of the good time coming, and without restraint, as in the release from prison.

I chose to use a pseudonym for personal reasons. I’m a retired neurosurgeon living in a rural paradise and am at rest from the turbulent life of my profession. I lived in an era when resident trainees worked 120 hours a week–a form of bondage no longer permitted by law. I served as a Navy Seabee general surgeon during the unpleasantness in Viet Nam, and spent the remainder of my ten-year service as a neurosurgeon in a major naval regional medical center. I’ve lived in every section of the country, saw all the inhumanity of man to man, practiced in private settings large and small, the military, academia, and as a medical humanitarian in the Third World.

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