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  #1  
Unread 09-29-2015, 03:55 PM
Jayne Osborn's Avatar
Jayne Osborn Jayne Osborn is offline
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Default Cockney rhyming slang

I've just written a poem which includes ''plates of meat'', meaning ''feet''.

Is Cockney rhyming slang (play the clip, and the Top 100 are there too) known about, outside the UK? I couldn't find a thread about it here.

Here's a bit from Wikipaedia: The construction involves replacing a common word with a rhyming phrase of two or three words and then, in almost all cases, omitting the secondary rhyming word (which is thereafter implied), in a process called hemiteleia, making the origin and meaning of the phrase elusive to listeners not in the know.

One example is replacing the word "stairs" with the rhyming phrase "apples and pears". Following the pattern of omission, "and pears" is dropped, thus the spoken phrase "I'm going up the apples" means "I'm going up the stairs".

In similar fashion, "telephone" is replaced by "dog" (= 'dog-and-bone'); "wife" by "trouble" (= 'trouble-and-strife'); "eyes" by "mincers" (= 'mince pies'); "wig" by "syrup" (= 'syrup of figs') and "feet" by "plates" (= 'plates of meat').

Thus a construction of the following type could conceivably arise: "It nearly knocked me off me plates—he was wearing a syrup! So I ran up the apples, got straight on the dog to me trouble and said I couldn't believe me mincers."
(To save you the trouble, the translation of that is "It nearly knocked me off my feet - he was wearing a wig! So I ran up the stairs, got straight on the phone to my wife and said I couldn't believe my eyes.")

Crazy... but fun
Brahms and Liszt = p*ssed; a load of cobblers (cobblers' awls) = a load of balls (bullsh*t); taking the Mickey (Mickey Bliss) = taking the p*ss.

It's getting late, so I'll be going up the apples soon!

I'm wondering whether to submit my aforementioned poem anywhere in the US, ...or should I just stick to a Brit venue?

Jayne
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Unread 09-29-2015, 04:04 PM
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Andrew Mandelbaum Andrew Mandelbaum is offline
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I love the stuff. Butcher for look (butcher hook) is one of my favorites. Let me take a butcher.
Shouldn't the meat be dropped from the poem? Is it?

Dunno how popular it is here as far as journal editors go. Good luck.
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Unread 09-29-2015, 04:13 PM
Roger Slater Roger Slater is offline
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I believe many Americans know what it is as a general matter but don't know actual phrases. For example, I didn't know "plates of meat" and could not have guessed it. But I do think Americans will think it's a lot of fun if you provide a glossary of some sort.
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Unread 09-29-2015, 04:37 PM
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Jayne Osborn Jayne Osborn is offline
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Just to put you straight, Andrew: It's a butcher's hook - hence "Let me take a butcher's ", not a butcher. I'm glad you love Cockney rhyming slang, me old china (china plate = mate)

(My poem is all about feet, so it isn't very hard to understand the reference to 'plates of meat'.)

Bob,
Some are very widely known over here, and well-used, but we don't always 'get' them either; they go back to the mid 19th century!
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Unread 09-29-2015, 04:56 PM
Simon Hunt Simon Hunt is offline
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With all due deference to Roger's claim, I've found (as a Brit-born, US-raised rhyming slang fan, 48 years-old) that Americans essentially have no notion of rhyming slang at all. It seems possible to me that those East of the Mississippi or North of a certain age (maybe 55 or so) may be more likely to have heard of it, but I have met well-educated East Coast Anglophiles of a fair age who had no idea what I was talking about...

Also, I suspect (based on the admittedly small sample of some-of-my-cousins) that younger Brits may not recognize the stuff like their elders do. I've heard some younger folks use expressions like "load of cobblers" and then seem entirely baffled when their words were identified as rhyming slang.

One Japanese-American of my acquaintance learned about rhyming slang when he visited Australia and was often called "China." He thought it was an (inaccurate) ethnic slur until he figured out that it conveyed affection. This anecdote makes me wonder if antipodean markets might be better for your poem than North American ones...
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Unread 09-29-2015, 05:00 PM
Roger Slater Roger Slater is offline
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Whether they've heard of it or not, I think that Americans who read literary magazines would be entertained by it once they received an explanation.
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Unread 09-29-2015, 05:18 PM
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Andrew Mandelbaum Andrew Mandelbaum is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jayne Osborn View Post
Just to put you straight, Andrew: It's a butcher's hook - hence "Let me take a butcher's ", not a butcher. I'm glad you love Cockney rhyming slang, me old china (china plate = mate)

(My poem is all about feet, so it isn't very hard to understand the reference to 'plates of meat'.)

Bob,
Some are very widely known over here, and well-used, but we don't always 'get' them either; they go back to the mid 19th century!

Really. Thanks! Do new ones still get coined?
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Unread 09-29-2015, 05:28 PM
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Jayne Osborn Jayne Osborn is offline
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Oh yes, Andrew, people invent them all the time! But the best ones are the old familiar ones.

Simon,
You're right - them youngsters don't know nuffin' these days, least of all how to talk proper.
They're a load of berks (from Berkshire Hunt = you-know-what!)
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Unread 09-29-2015, 06:47 PM
Matt Q Matt Q is offline
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Word on the internet is that it's Berkeley Hunt nor Berkshire Hunt that gives rise to berk, which makes sense I guess, since if it were the latter, we'd all be calling each other barks rather than berks.
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Unread 09-30-2015, 06:37 AM
Jerome Betts Jerome Betts is offline
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Matt, the COD gives 'Berkeley Hunt and Berkshire Hunt'. Cockney speakers of the past (do genuine ones still exist as opposed to General London or Estuary?) presumably followed the lead of the old employee of Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire in the 50s. He referred to the mustard-coated B. Hunt and the local small town as 'Burkley', like the name of that American educational institution.

Andrew, whether genuine bits of rhyming slang are still being coined I don't know, but 'take a butcher's' and 'plates of meat' I would have thought pretty well known (the latter perhaps because quite a life-like image rather than an arbitrary association through rhyme.) 'Cobblers!', as Jayne says ,is also well-known and perhaps helped by being detached from its original pairing.

The trouble is nowadays it seems hard to tell whether expressions are authentically current or revived by TV scriptwriters, e. g. 'barnet' for 'hair' (Barnet Fair) and 'whistle' for 'suit' (whistle and flute.)
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