Cockney Rhyming Slang

The more I end up explaining UK ways to my Asian friends, the more convinced I am that the British are a bunch of weirdos!

Take Cockney Rhyming Slang, for example. Quite a regular thing if you've lived in London for 20 years as I have. But explain it to a Japanese friend and one has to stop and admit it's odd. So for those of you who have NOT lived in the UK or London for a huge chunk of your lives, this is what it is in all its strangeness:

Cockney Rhyming Slang is a supplemental language used mainly by working-class people in the East End of London. Most commonly these are market traders and those whose families date back locally to the 1800s, when the craze began there. Though some elements are used in day to day English by other Londoners, including me.

Words are used that are not the actual word, but a rhyming one or part of a rhyming phrase. So sentences in CRS (including Cockney accent) might go:
Example: "Giz a butchers, I'm so Hank Marvin you'd hardly Adam and Eve it."
Translation: "Give me a look, I am so starving you'd hardly believe it."

Example: "What kinda Barnet is that, gotta be a syrup."
Translation: "What kind of hair is that, it's got to be a wig."

A lot of the rhyming words or phrases come from names of London places, or things  connected to old-fashioned market life. But there are new versions too. Here's a short list of common ones:

Hank Marvin = starving (after the Shadows guitarist)
Apples (& pears) = stairs
Butchers (hook) = look
Barnet (fair) = hair
Syrup (of figs) = wig
Dog & bone = phone
Pete Tong = wrong (after the DJ)
Adam & Eve = believe
Britney (Spears) = beers (called Britneys)
Hampstead (Heath) = teeth (called Hampsteads)

I have no idea why some are direct rhymes and some have dropped the real rhyme. But it is thought this slang arose as a kind of exclusive code. Possibly so that market traders could discuss things without customers understanding, or that crime gangs had a secret language from the police. There are many theories and I don't think any one has been proved.

Cockney Rhyming Slang, when used, is slotted into regular English. And, contrary to some American movies, Londoners don't all use it, nor do Cockney people use it continually throughout conversation! It is actually rare to hear it nowadays, though I admit I use Hank Marvin, Pete Tong and Barnet. ^^

Actually while researching this blogpost I discovered that some words now in dictionary English, started life as rhyming slang. One example is 'On my tod' - meaning 'on my own'. Original phrase: Tod Sloan (a famous jockey in the early 20th century).