0:00

Attention Seattle in the Greater Pacific

0:02

Northwest area. If you are

0:05

in town on January sixteen, you're

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hereby commanded to go to the More Theater

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to see us Stuff you should know. That's

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right. We are kicking off with

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Seattle, all new material. We're

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super excited. You always turn out for us. Tickets

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go on sale tomorrow for

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the January six show. You can find out ticket

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info at s y s K live dot

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com. Welcome to

0:28

Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart

0:30

Radios, How Stuff Works and

0:38

Welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,

0:40

and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant right there.

0:42

There's Jerry Rowland right there. So that

0:44

makes this Stuff you should Know right comes.

0:51

We can't top that.

0:54

I was trying to think a way to say welcome to the podcast

0:56

in Cockney rhyming slang. Can

0:59

you make anyto my My

1:01

brain is so broken right now, I can't

1:03

even try. Okay, good, good, well,

1:05

welcome. It's a good, good time to record

1:07

a show. Exactly are you gonna

1:09

do some Cockney in here? Right? We want

1:12

to offend as many Londoners as we can. I

1:14

don't know, Just just channel a

1:16

little Dick van Dyke. Oh

1:19

you know, yeah, the

1:21

American doing a bad

1:23

Cockney accent. Well, I did recently

1:26

rewatch The Limey, Yes,

1:28

for Casey's Benefits. Yeah, the great, great

1:31

movie from Steven Soderbergh. I never

1:33

seen it. It's awesome, is

1:35

it really? I mean, I know it's like a classic

1:37

and everybody loves it, but I mean it's really that good.

1:39

Huh yeah, because a lot of people liked,

1:42

Um, I don't know The Hangover?

1:45

Well, how would you? How would you like The Lie Me and The

1:47

Hangover? Same level? Yeah,

1:50

they're the same movie almost all right, it's weird. Well,

1:52

then I've seen The Hangover, so I don't need to see The lime

1:55

The Limey is great and Tarance Stamp

1:58

is awesome in it and uses

2:01

some Cockney rhyming slang and one great

2:03

scene. My big exposure to Cockney

2:05

rhyming slang is block Stock in Two Smoking

2:07

Barrels Snatch, which

2:10

I think are both directed by Guy Ritchie Right

2:12

was in lock Stock like his first attempt, and Snatch

2:15

was the one that like got him

2:17

married to Madonna. You're a fan of Hits,

2:20

Yeah, I mean as much as I like

2:23

his movies, I don't like him personally necessarily

2:25

because he like hunts, bore like a

2:28

jackass, and yeah, like

2:31

drunk with his friends in the most disrespectful

2:33

way of murdering a pig. I mean his

2:35

movies. But yeah, I do like his movie. It sounds like he's a

2:37

creep too. I'm not going to

2:39

go on record saying that, but yeah,

2:43

uh yeah, those movies are okay. And

2:45

then I guess what's his name, don

2:48

Cheatle a little bit in Oceans eleven. Sure,

2:51

he did a little bit of that, right,

2:53

And I mean like it's it's code

2:55

to Americans, it's oh, there's

2:57

like a criminal, a British criminal. That's

3:00

all that means these days. Yeah,

3:02

I think so. In movies, it's definitely

3:05

like all of those are criminal criminal

3:07

people in the moment, they're like, you know, kind of slick,

3:09

cool criminals that like wear leather coats

3:11

and stuff like that, not not dumb criminals

3:14

that were like football jerseys or anything

3:16

like that. They're like, you know, smooth criminals.

3:18

That's I think what I was looking for. But

3:21

um, this this idea of

3:23

associating it with Cockney

3:25

is not necessarily associating it with criminals.

3:27

It's more associated with like um,

3:30

lower class, working class, less educated,

3:32

definitely not the aristocracy

3:35

over in Britain or the upper class.

3:38

And that by by speaking with a Cockney

3:40

accent, or more

3:42

to the point, using Cockney rhyming slang, you

3:44

could really differentiate yourself too

3:47

as a point of pride, like you

3:49

were speaking like your group. You're in group,

3:52

which was at the time Cockney.

3:54

But the big surprise to all this is it's really

3:56

possible and even probable that

3:59

it wasn't then that came up

4:01

with this rhyming slang, that it was

4:03

somebody else altogether. Maybe

4:05

who knows? Should we say what it is? No,

4:09

not for the rest of the podcast, Cockney

4:12

rhyming slang. It

4:14

wasn't even very clearly

4:16

defined in this piece. Okay,

4:19

did you think it was. It's

4:21

in there, Okay, you gotta just kind of

4:24

separate the wheat from the chaff. So

4:27

it is a two word phrase. It

4:29

is a slang phrase consisting

4:31

of two words. Were the last

4:34

word of that phrase rhymes

4:36

with the original word. And

4:39

it can be And I think the best way to

4:41

do this is just to throw out of you keep

4:43

describing, well,

4:46

the two word phrase. It can be. It can be a

4:48

lot of things. That can be a person's name, it can be

4:50

just something random, could be a place, could

4:52

be a place, it could be a lot of things. It

4:54

can be anything. Yeah,

4:56

sure, I guess it can be. But shall

4:58

we illustrate it through. Well, there's a second

5:01

part to it too, Okay, the second

5:03

part, and this is very important. The

5:05

two word phrase that

5:07

you're using to that were the second

5:09

word rhymes with the word you're actually saying.

5:12

Yeah, the original word, the original word thank you,

5:15

usually has nothing to do with it.

5:18

There's no metaphor, there's no connection,

5:20

there's no nothing, there's no

5:22

there's no context to it. It's supposed

5:25

to just be random or in most cases

5:27

it is just random words, right,

5:30

one of which rhymes with the word you're replacing.

5:32

And to further complicate things,

5:36

in a lot of cases, and no one knows why,

5:39

sometimes this happens, and sometimes it doesn't.

5:41

A lot of times that one of the words of

5:43

the two word phrases dropped and

5:46

then you're just left with the one word, which

5:48

doesn't even rhyme with the original word anymore.

5:50

Right, that's I mean, that's probably the best

5:52

description of cockney rhyming slaying anyone's

5:54

ever given, So I think we should

5:56

illustrate it with a couple of examples.

5:59

I've hold some from from

6:01

something called the Internet. Um.

6:04

Here here's one, the tip

6:07

and tet. That's how long

6:09

it took me to come up with that tip and

6:11

tet for Internet. But in ten years it'll

6:13

just be called the tip. I'm gonna

6:15

log onto the tip. So let's

6:18

say your word was and this was the Ocean's

6:20

eleven specifically, trouble is

6:22

the word that you're trying to say. Cockney

6:24

rhyming slang for trouble is Barney

6:26

rubble. Awesome. Um,

6:30

And so you would say you're making

6:32

a bit of the Bonnie rubbleed again right

6:34

when somebody that was kind of

6:37

um, who was that making

6:40

a bit of Bonnie rubble? Not the CE?

6:42

I already did it wrong? No, but I think

6:44

that's not like a real person to an American

6:46

for sure. Oh yeah, Um, I

6:48

can't, I can't. I'll shout it out later.

6:50

Man, I finally did a good

6:53

one. We just I just don't know who. But

6:55

it wasn't a Cockney person, okay.

6:59

Uh. Other example, um, for

7:02

queen, um, they

7:04

would use the term baked bean looks

7:06

on TV it's the baked bean, and

7:09

that's the queen. Or

7:11

in the case of one that's been dropped, what

7:14

is ed used here? Bees and honey.

7:17

That one is not dropped for money, okay,

7:20

but which one was? Apples and pairs

7:22

for stairs? Right, So you

7:24

would say I'm gonna go

7:26

up the apple and stairs

7:29

apples and pears? Oh man, let

7:32

me retake this. Everybody. You

7:34

would say, I'm going to go

7:36

up the apples and pears to go get

7:38

my wallet to pay for this pizza or

7:41

something to that effect. Okay, But

7:43

then over time people dropped the pears,

7:46

and so now the word for stairs

7:48

in Cockney rhyming slang is just apples, which,

7:51

if you're just standing there on the outside like

7:53

a normal American bloke by

7:56

the way, he means person. Um,

7:58

you have no idea why this

8:00

person just called stairs apples. You

8:02

got what they were saying, because the context

8:05

is there, You're going up the apples to get your wallet

8:07

to pay for the pizza. But why

8:10

would you just say that? Did you did you hit your

8:12

head? Is there something wrong with you? What's the problem?

8:14

Why would you just call that apples? That's

8:16

why it's so confounding. But the great

8:19

thing about cockney rhyming slang, and in

8:21

particular the great thing about researching cockney

8:23

rhyming slang, did you learn how

8:25

you get from apples two

8:28

stairs and then it makes sense? Sometimes

8:32

yeah, that's true. It's not always yeah, sometimes

8:34

there's uh, it's

8:36

it's not documented, which Ed points out is

8:38

one of the problems. Sometimes you can

8:40

draw the line, the through line, but

8:43

because it's not documented, and sometimes these

8:46

things take years and years

8:48

to morph into its final version unless

8:51

you're unless you're you know, on

8:53

the on

8:56

the door now

8:58

on the streets, than you wouldn't know. But

9:00

I don't know what streets is. You can't just make stuff up,

9:03

Like there's real words on the drums

9:05

and beats on the drums,

9:08

right, but they probably have a word

9:10

for streets. Like that's the whole point. You

9:12

can't just make anything up, but

9:15

you could if it hasn't been taken yet. Sure.

9:17

But also that's the other thing about cockney

9:19

rhyming slang is it evolves right

9:21

so old celebrities that that no

9:23

one even knows about any more, followay to new

9:26

celebrities whose name also rhyme with

9:28

you know, whatever word you're saying, right, I thought

9:30

you meant old celebrities who maybe used

9:32

to talk this way, like Michael Caine. No,

9:35

he's never said any rhyming slang in his life.

9:37

Of course, you got to see the movie Alfie. Maybe

9:39

that's who it was. It might have been Michael Kane.

9:42

I don't think that Michael Kane. I think

9:44

it was as a matter of fact, yea, thank you, I'm glad

9:46

you did it. Noel always says a good joke is to say

9:50

Michael Caine in the correct accent, say

9:52

the words my cocaine,

9:56

and it sounds like Michael Caine saying it. Then it

9:58

sounds like the correct accent for Michael

10:00

Caine. Right, Uh,

10:03

my cocaine. Well,

10:06

don't you just blew that one out of the water. You

10:11

could have set me up in the future. Now

10:13

you haven't my

10:16

cocaine. Well, there's I've

10:18

got it two ways now, man, here's

10:21

the thing, my cocaine. That's

10:25

my cocaine. It's pretty

10:27

good, Michael Caine, it is good. You're right. No, you

10:29

just gotta say it the right way and not like a

10:32

robot. Josh. So

10:34

here's the one of the things that sort of confounding.

10:37

If you want to look up a uh,

10:40

like a glossary and

10:42

say, well, here's I'm gonna do. I'm gonna learn Cockney

10:45

rhyming slang. So for my trip

10:47

to England, I'm really you know, I'm really

10:49

in with everybody. First

10:52

of all, bad idea. Second

10:54

of all, it's it can be very localized

10:57

and the accents are all different. Yeah,

10:59

so even people in London who

11:01

both who all use people

11:04

in London don't really do. But the people who use Cockney

11:06

rhymings lang in London might not even

11:08

agree on what word is means

11:11

what. I'm just picturing all the people walking

11:13

around England laughing their artists off. I

11:16

can't wait to get to that one as

11:19

we stumble through this. Um Yeah.

11:21

Ed had a really good example

11:24

of why there's no um

11:27

codification of the Cockney rhyming slang.

11:30

He said that when people are creating a language,

11:32

especially informal ones like slang, they

11:35

don't write it all down. Quote, dear

11:37

Diary referred to my house as a cat

11:39

and mouse today because it rhymed. We all

11:41

had a good laugh. Might try just calling

11:43

it cat tomorrow and see how it goes. It

11:46

is. It sounds funny, but that's that's how

11:48

it works. Can you imagine stumbling across

11:51

the diary that? Um.

11:54

And here's the other thing too, is there are cases

11:57

where there is a little bit of

11:59

a reflection and of the original

12:01

word. And the example that it gives

12:03

here is twist. Yeah,

12:06

like to call a woman a twist, which

12:09

I don't know if that's a derogatory or not, or just some

12:11

weird slang that no one uses anymore. I don't

12:13

think so, although I don't know. So. Yeah,

12:16

these are also the people who use the C word

12:18

like it's nothing. We can't

12:21

fanny, Oh

12:24

man, I can't wait to go back there, which

12:27

we're gonna do soon, is right, I'd love to do maybe?

12:30

Yeah? All right. Uh so twist

12:32

came from twist and twirl, which

12:35

meant girl, which is uh

12:38

they were talking about like dancing with a girl twisting

12:40

and twirling in a nightclub. Let's say, so there's some

12:42

connection in that way. Yeah, so girl

12:45

ended up becoming twist, So

12:47

that sort of makes sense. There's another

12:49

one called on your Todd after

12:51

a guy named Todd Sloan, and it

12:53

means on your own right, And

12:56

the thing is, it's like on your Todd,

12:58

it makes sense. Sloan rhymes thone. It doesn't

13:00

have to have any connection, but that one actually

13:03

does because Todd Sloan was a famous

13:05

jockey in the nineteenth century.

13:08

Yes, what other kind is there? Oh?

13:11

Yes, sure? Um so his book,

13:13

his memoir, was called Todd Sloan by

13:15

himself, which is weird to refer

13:17

to yourself in third person for your memoir, But

13:21

there was a line in it that apparently east

13:24

End east Enders in London like

13:26

really picked up. I was left alone

13:28

by those I never ceased to grieve for.

13:31

It's so like the idea of being alone or on

13:33

your own became synonymous with

13:36

Todd Sloan. His names has happened to rhyme

13:38

with that. So it's one of those rare ones where there is

13:40

a connection to it, and also

13:42

rare chuck, and that this is a nineteenth

13:45

century horse jockey and still

13:47

today on your Todd is recognized

13:49

as on your own, whereas a lot of people probably

13:51

have no idea exact from who he

13:54

is. And when that happens that

13:56

frequently that person gets moved

13:58

out for potentially another celebrity another

14:01

word, that's a little more understandable to recognize

14:03

another new jockey to people today, Right, Yeah,

14:06

exactly, which can you name one? Nope,

14:08

nope. Um, all right, maybe we should take

14:10

a break and we'll talk about some

14:12

of the other uh some other examples

14:14

after this message.

14:16

Okay,

14:35

we're back. Jerry just opened

14:37

the loudest sandwich in the history of the world. She's

14:40

like, hold on a minute. And it sounded like it was in a space

14:42

blanket. It was like Ernest opens

14:44

a sandwich over here. That was a

14:46

good one, not as good as part

14:48

two. I

14:51

saw that first one in the theater. Yeah.

14:54

So here's some other examples that have

14:57

Some of them have sort of aid

15:00

over in England and some of them have

15:02

found their way. Like apparently the term put

15:04

up your dukes, I didn't Cockney

15:07

rhyming slang, so and I didn't write down where

15:09

dukes came from, but that's where it was originally

15:11

a Cockney rhyming slang term.

15:14

Yeah, because so, um, you

15:16

would think it had to do with fists or something, dukes

15:19

for fists. What didn't not write that

15:21

down? Okay, But but so that's another

15:23

really important point to say about cockney

15:25

rhyming slang. It's frequently rhyming

15:28

slang based on slang. So the word

15:30

it's replacing is a slang word to begin

15:32

with, So who knows what the Duke's actually

15:34

rhymed with at any point? Yeah, that's a good

15:36

point. So, uh,

15:39

first of all, I've never heard this blowing a raspberry.

15:42

What have you heard of that? Yeah? That's

15:44

tooting out of your that

15:47

What I just did is as much blowing

15:49

a raspberry is actually farting. Oh

15:51

really? Yeah? Okay,

15:54

well I've heard of giving someone a raspberry like

15:56

that. Okay, that's the same thing. Yeah, okay,

15:59

Well apparently that's derived from

16:02

raspberry tart slang

16:04

for fart. Isn't that amazing? It's pretty

16:06

great? Yeah. Um, so that one

16:09

is one of the rare ones I love talking about exceptions.

16:11

Do you know that? Um,

16:13

that's one of the rare ones that made its way

16:15

to America because everyone but

16:18

you knows what blowing a raspberry

16:20

is. I guess I've never heard of the term blowing,

16:22

but giving someone a raspberry same thing. I

16:24

found two more. One is

16:27

controversial. It's not set in stone, but

16:29

it's as good an explanation as any. Get

16:32

down to brass tacks. I saw that one

16:34

too. That's a standing for facts.

16:36

Let's get down to the bare facts. Um,

16:38

possibly it's not. It's not done.

16:41

Um. One that is a percent

16:44

as far as I can tell, is bread.

16:46

I saw that too for money in

16:48

America, bread and honey

16:51

became just bread, right, and it caught

16:54

on here and caught on again. Just

16:56

now, well bees in honey though, was

16:58

also for money. Is that just one of

17:01

the local like depends on where you are

17:03

things, Yeah, okay, yeah, but in America,

17:05

I mean, you know we use bread. Everybody

17:07

calls it bread. Yeah. I didn't know that that would come

17:09

back. Yeah, somebody

17:11

wrote in to say it had come back. Let's get this

17:14

bread right, I guess.

17:16

So that's familiar. You need to

17:18

spend more time on Reddit. Uh. Here's

17:20

another one. Dog and bone stands

17:22

in for phone, call me on the dog

17:24

and bone. Uh.

17:27

And then Ed says there may be some kind

17:29

of correlation between one syllable words

17:32

that lead off that phrase, um

17:36

staying in the phrase, But I don't there's

17:38

so many exceptions. I don't know if there is a rule exactly.

17:41

And I think that's really this is worth saying.

17:44

We looked all over the place. I know ED did too,

17:47

for straight up linguistic

17:50

dissertations and papers on Cockney

17:52

rhyming, slane, it's not there. It's

17:55

just treated as fun and hilarious, even though

17:57

it is its own made up language.

18:00

It's ever evolving, still alive, has been

18:02

around. We'll talk about the history of a minute for

18:04

a hundred and fifty plus years, but apparently

18:07

no linguists has ever thought enough of it to

18:09

to sit down and write a genuine paper about

18:12

it. So we couldn't find that. But

18:14

the one thing that really occurred to me was in

18:17

looking into it.

18:20

I don't know if it could ever be explained. I

18:22

think it's the result of so many individual

18:25

decisions and then collective

18:27

agreements to take up and go along

18:29

with those decisions, and those

18:32

agreements can be totally undermined by a new

18:34

individual decision that catches on that.

18:36

How could you possibly map and

18:39

even understand all or explain

18:41

all of that different stuff? But

18:43

even though we can't explain it, once you start

18:45

to learn how it works, it's understandable.

18:48

So you can't explain, but you can't

18:50

understand it. Yeah, And it's

18:53

like I always wonder with any kind of slang

18:55

or like who who makes the stuff up?

18:57

Who sets the rules? It's probably

18:59

just the kind of thing that just starts

19:01

on a playground and

19:04

spreads from there and gets

19:06

codified unofficially. Uh,

19:09

then everyone's using it, but

19:11

I wonder if they're I don't know. You

19:13

can't trace this stuff, which is sort of frustrating

19:16

as researchers, because I think we like

19:18

to pinpoint things. Yeah, but it I mean

19:20

people have tried to trace it and they've come

19:22

awfully close. Well, we'll get to that in a minute.

19:25

I want to go over some more of these. I want

19:27

to get up on my plates and get

19:29

out of here your meat, your plates

19:31

of meat, plates of meat, which

19:34

his feet or between

19:36

podcast you probably have to go take a rattle,

19:39

Yeah, rattle and his

19:41

rattle and hiss like a snake. You got

19:43

it? And that means peep exactly.

19:47

And then should I guess we should talk about ours?

19:51

Yes, that's the one you were pretty excited about. Yes,

19:53

because it goes even so much farther than

19:56

our Stephen. Yeah, it's pretty convoluted. Okay,

19:58

you want to take it? No, go ahead? So

20:00

urs the very famous name for ass

20:03

in the UK. Everybody

20:06

knows that it's actually it

20:09

comes from Aristotle, which

20:11

you're like, well, what does that have to do with ass well. Let me

20:13

tell you Aristotle is

20:15

Cockney rhyming slang for bottle.

20:18

Again, the question is what does that have to

20:20

do with ass well. Originally the

20:23

Cockney rhyming slang word for ass

20:25

was bottling. Glass became

20:28

shortened to bottle. Somebody came

20:30

along and rhymed Aristotle with it. That

20:32

got shortened to aris, and then to ours.

20:36

It goes even further than that. I saw

20:38

one plaster for ours,

20:42

plaster of Paris, Paris, Aristotle,

20:45

bottle, bottle and glass. Ass

20:48

That's how deep the Cockney rhyming

20:50

slang has covered up the collective

20:52

ass of the UK. Yeah, and again

20:54

it's like why you can't

20:57

You can't put that in a book and explain

21:00

in it in any kind of way that makes sense. You gotta do it

21:02

on a podcast or a paper. You just

21:04

have to accept it. It's like, that's how it happened on the

21:06

street. I think that's a really good way on the streets

21:08

to the east end right right in

21:10

your cocaine, No,

21:12

not your cocaine. Uh.

21:16

They do have for all that we're saying about how

21:18

don't look at glossaries and stuff like that, they do have

21:21

dictionaries that you can buy.

21:23

If you're a total square, I

21:25

would guess it's probably not a good thing to do. That's

21:28

like saying, you know, I want to become

21:30

a rapper, so let me get a rhyming dictionary.

21:33

Although I did have a rhyming dictionary at one point.

21:36

Well, rhyming it's not, you know, just limited

21:38

to Cockney. We love to rhyme,

21:40

Yeah, which is one assertion d

21:42

makes for why it's popular so

21:45

long lasting. Well, should

21:47

we talk about some of the theories on where it originated?

21:50

Because I looked in a bunch of places

21:52

and I don't think I

21:55

mean, I think calling it theory

21:57

is a little um.

22:00

I think they kind of know where it came from. They

22:02

just don't know exactly why. They can't

22:04

pinpoint it to like on this day,

22:07

on this in this place. But

22:09

it's not a complete mystery though. No, they've

22:11

got it basically localized

22:14

to about a one and a half mile area

22:16

of London and basically

22:19

down to the year. It's just exactly

22:21

where and exactly who is and exactly

22:23

why are the real outstanding questions,

22:25

which is actually a lot of questions. Yeah, one

22:27

of the one of the wise was

22:30

that, uh, and this one I

22:32

think doesn't have as much credence now, but

22:35

it's like the most common one, right is that you

22:37

will hear that it was coded language

22:39

created by criminals to

22:42

keep the cops confused as to what was going

22:44

on, which makes sense in one

22:46

way because it certainly could cause confusion,

22:49

but it also um and I

22:51

think it makes a pretty good point that like, were

22:54

they like, were cops just hanging around overhearing

22:56

things like why did they feel like they

22:58

needed to create this whole langue? Which and

23:00

cops, if they were street

23:03

cops would have figured this stuff out as

23:05

well, you know, because it wouldn't have been that big

23:07

of a secret. Yeah, there's this guy named Dick Sullivan

23:09

who wrote an essay on the Victorian Web

23:12

which is actually kind of cool. Um,

23:14

And he said the the street cops

23:17

would have come from the same areas and

23:19

families and neighborhoods that the criminals would

23:21

have, so they would have been raised on this rhyming

23:23

slang anyway. So it doesn't really hold

23:25

up to scrutiny when you when you look at it

23:27

like that it was a

23:30

intentionally created coded

23:32

language meant to confuse the cops,

23:34

right, then, that's not to say it nevertheless

23:37

wasn't associated with some

23:39

kind of criminal underworld East

23:42

London types. Yeah, and it almost certainly

23:44

was taken up by the Cockneys, but it wasn't

23:46

necessarily Cockneys or criminals

23:49

who came up with this rhyming slang. To begin

23:51

with. There's this guy named

23:53

John Camden Hotton, and

23:56

he wrote one of the better titled, or

23:58

at least most directly titled books

24:00

I've ever heard of, And there's no colon,

24:03

No, there's not. There are a couple of commas though, a

24:05

dictionary of modern slang, cant

24:08

and vulgar words used at the present

24:10

day in the streets of London, and

24:12

he he has a chapter on rhyming slang,

24:15

and he basically says that it

24:17

was two groups shaunters

24:20

and patterers, basically traveling

24:22

salesman who would stand on street corners

24:25

and hawk their wares and you know, maybe pick

24:27

your pocket while you were trying to buy something from

24:29

them, and that they came up with Cockney

24:31

rhyming slang. Yeah, and I saw that enough

24:33

to think that that's probably true.

24:36

Yeah. The shaunters in particular spoken

24:38

like singing rhyming language,

24:40

so it would have been pretty quick evolution.

24:43

Yeah, I think this one makes a lot of sense. Um

24:45

street criers, I mean England

24:47

and London especially says as a long tradition

24:50

of street corner parkers and things like this. I

24:52

remember seeing one myself when I traveled there

24:55

in the nineties and I was

24:57

like, they're still doing this stuff. It was like

24:59

a box in the park where you can go stand

25:01

on it and soapbox. Uh

25:03

maybe, I mean that's where that came from, right

25:06

probably, and uh and just

25:08

you know, shout your piece, sure,

25:11

and it's all guy doing it, And I thought, what year is this?

25:13

This is wonderful, it's fantastic.

25:15

But the in particular the Shaunters,

25:18

they sang and then sold penny

25:21

ballads sheet music of penny

25:23

ballads that they would write real quick after

25:25

somebody famous died or there was a train wreck or something,

25:27

they'd write a ballad about it and then be out in

25:29

the corners selling these things. But because

25:31

they were singing in rhymes and sing song, it's

25:34

a really good bet that these guys were

25:36

the ones who originated rhyming slang.

25:39

But um not necessarily

25:41

for any kind of uh intentionally

25:43

coded language, because that same

25:46

guy, Dick Sullivan says

25:48

there's no reason for patterers

25:51

who sold their you know, little gee galls or

25:53

trinkets or whatever. I love that word

25:55

um or shaunters who were selling selling

25:57

these penny ballads. They worked alone. Was

26:00

no need for them to come up with a coded language

26:02

communicate with one another, yeah, in front of a customer

26:04

who they were ripping off. Because they didn't need to communicate

26:07

with one another in front of customers. Well,

26:09

I saw that maybe they, you know, could communicate

26:12

with each other when customers were around or

26:14

something. I don't know, right. But the

26:17

other part of that is that it supposedly

26:19

flies in the face of how slang develops, that it's

26:22

unintentional, Like you don't say,

26:24

let's come up with a coded language and here's how it works.

26:27

Yeah, even like American teenagers

26:30

when they have slang that their parents don't understand,

26:33

Like you remember how that stuff went. It was something

26:35

you just heard. You never sat around. Sure, I'm

26:37

hip to that and said, you

26:40

know, like, hey, let's use this other word that

26:42

our parents won't know what it means. You know,

26:45

we'll call it pepsi when we're on the phone.

26:48

Uh. There was also the Victorian

26:51

back slang which

26:53

that was not Cockney rhyming slang. That

26:56

was just pronouncing words backwards.

26:59

Uh, sort of simple like

27:02

job for boy. Yes. But

27:04

something interesting about that is that it's based on

27:06

the spelling, not the pronunciation, right,

27:09

which suggests a strong degree

27:11

of literacy, which you would probably not

27:13

have found among at least the patterners,

27:16

probably among the shaunterers because

27:19

they were writing songs and ballads, so

27:21

it's possible they came up with that too, but

27:24

they think maybe it was Butcher's and Butcher's

27:26

assistants who came up with back slang. Yeah,

27:29

and actually to confused customers

27:31

are to be able to talk about what price

27:34

they should charge a customer in front of the customer.

27:36

So there is like you take all these different pieces

27:39

and you get the current idea and story

27:42

for Cockney rhyming slang, but it's actually

27:44

a bunch of different stuff that wasn't

27:46

really all connected until later on. Yeah.

27:49

What it probably also was not was

27:52

Irish stock workers. There

27:54

was one theory being bandied about

27:56

that Irish stock workers would come over and

27:58

they would speak in this made rhyming slang.

28:01

Uh, So you know, they could just talk among

28:03

their Irish peers and the people of

28:05

London wouldn't understand them. Not much

28:07

of this makes any sense at all because

28:10

they don't. I think now you see it some

28:12

in Ireland. But um, for

28:15

all those years that it was prevalent in London, it

28:17

was not in Ireland. Right

28:19

unless they literally just made it up when they came

28:22

over from Ireland. Right. Plus

28:24

why would they not to speak Irish in front of the English?

28:27

Might not speak it? Yeah? Or

28:29

what would that be Gaelic? Uh?

28:31

Sure, I think So we're getting so much of

28:33

this wrong. Do you want to take a break

28:35

in fact check everything and maybe just

28:38

rewind and start over. Yeah, let's

28:40

let's get our weight what was? Facts

28:42

are our brass tacks. Let's right, So

28:44

we gotta go get our brass stright. That's right.

28:47

Okay,

29:06

we're back. It's been about thirty

29:08

minutes since we left you guys. Um

29:11

fact checked everything and so far, so

29:13

good. Yeah, this is a perfect podcast. So

29:17

you said at the beginning, you teased out that it might

29:19

not even have been Cockney to begin with.

29:22

Everything I saw kind

29:24

of placed it in that uh,

29:26

that east. I think they call it cheap

29:28

side um

29:32

where the Cockneys were, But Cockney was also

29:35

I mean it's also not necessarily specifically

29:37

at one place, right. No, But

29:39

if you're talking about Cockney people, supposedly

29:42

the definition of a Cockney person

29:44

is someone who's born within hearing distance

29:46

of the bells of St Mary le Beau in

29:49

Cheapside, um, which

29:51

was in London. What this guy

29:53

John Camden Houghton, who was writing in

29:55

eighteen sixty and placed

29:58

the um play the

30:00

origin of rhyming slang twelve

30:02

to fifteen years before. So this guy was like

30:04

on top of it as it was happening. Um.

30:08

He placed it at a place called Seven Dials,

30:10

which is like a big market place and I think still

30:12

is, which is a mile and a half

30:14

away from Cheapside, which at

30:16

the time was in Westminster

30:18

at the time of different town. So you had

30:21

city of London and then Westminster, which is where

30:23

Seven Dials was. So if you're if

30:25

you believe Hotton, then it wasn't the

30:27

Cockney at all who came up with that. It

30:29

was just patterers and Shawn

30:32

Tours. That's

30:34

a different word than I said. No, Shawn Tours,

30:37

well Cockney has uh. What

30:39

that is though, is just sort of the working class

30:43

I think used to be viewed as uneducated

30:46

sort of lower class. Um.

30:48

That may be a bit harsh, but if anything, it

30:50

was not the upper crust of

30:53

British society. Uh,

30:55

you know the pub the hard drinking

30:57

pub goers, the rubb a dub dub goers.

31:00

Is that pubs? Yeah, which is another exception

31:02

because you go from one one syllable pub

31:05

to rub a dub dub and it

31:07

actually has three rhymes in there. But

31:09

that is Cockney rhyming slang for pub. Well.

31:11

But the Cockneys were also known for a bit more

31:14

of progressive politics,

31:16

and I think nowadays

31:18

there can be a bit more of a of a pride

31:21

of like a working class pride associated with

31:23

it. I think there was back then too, was there? But

31:27

I think that's one reason also why

31:29

the Cockney accent and Cockney

31:31

rhyming slang in particular was

31:34

um just treated shabbily

31:36

and looked down on, you know,

31:38

by the rest of England, right, because

31:41

it was supposedly, you know, associated with lower

31:43

classes. Yeah, it also found its way

31:45

to Australia, isn't that right?

31:48

And then uh, somehow on the West

31:50

coast of America, Um,

31:52

where the Australian version came in. Yeah,

31:55

and the prisons of the West Coast. In the

31:57

US, it was called Australian

31:59

rhyme slang. So I guess some cool

32:01

guy from Australia showed up and was speaking

32:05

in Gibberish. That just made everyone think

32:07

I want to do this too, right. It's

32:10

kind of fun to go on YouTube though and see some of these,

32:12

you know, because it's such a big thing in England. It's been all

32:14

over the BBC. I watched

32:16

one episode of the Two Ronnie's where

32:19

this priest at a sermon and Cockney

32:21

rhyming slang. It was very funny

32:23

and one of those sort of you know, eighties

32:26

I guess it was eighties early eighties. BBC

32:28

comedies are always fun, you know. The

32:30

production value is not all there. The

32:33

laugh track is it had to have been a laugh

32:35

track. I don't think it was a studio audience, although

32:37

it may have been. I don't know. It was hard

32:40

to tell. That's so that's during the transition.

32:42

But there were other shows, uh Not

32:45

On Your Nelly and The Sweeney,

32:48

and the titles of both of those shows come

32:50

from actual Cockney rhyming slang as well.

32:52

Yeah. The Sweeney is particularly

32:54

dense. It's short for Sweeney

32:57

Todd, which was rhyming slang for flying

32:59

squaw, which is a particular branch

33:01

of the Metropolitan Police, kind of like Major

33:03

Case. So the Sweeney

33:06

was like the Major Case division of Metropolitan

33:08

Police. So Nellie comes from

33:10

the word Nellie Duff, the name Nellie Duff,

33:13

which is apparently just a nonsense name, and

33:16

that rhymes with puff, which

33:18

means life. So not on your Nellie means

33:20

not on your life. Clearly,

33:24

it's so dense. And then of course things like

33:26

you mentioned the guy Richie really brought it into

33:29

the American consciousness in

33:31

the nineties when he made those two movies,

33:34

and he brought into my consciousness. I'll tell you

33:36

that. Yeah. Sure. So

33:40

there's a really good question, Chuck,

33:42

that I think we need to ask. How is

33:44

it that in two thousand nineteen you

33:47

and I are analyzing a

33:51

hyperlocal slang

33:54

that came out of the eighteen forties

33:57

in you know, some very specific part

33:59

of London, Like, how how

34:01

is Cockney rhyming slang still around after

34:03

all this year, all these years, when so much

34:06

other slang has come and gone over the years

34:08

that we have no idea ever even existed.

34:10

What's the staying power of Cockney rhyming slang.

34:13

Do you expect me to have an answer. I

34:15

don't have one about why it's stuck

34:18

around other than people. You know, if

34:20

people don't still use it, then it would have fallen

34:22

by the wayside. So clearly it's popular.

34:25

Yeah, it seems to have gotten and maybe this is

34:27

just my recognition of it, but it seems to have

34:29

gotten more popular in the last twenty years. What

34:31

I was reading is that, especially in the UK,

34:33

it's popularity is based on kitcheness,

34:37

you know, kind of like chipster irony.

34:39

Like the Cockney rhyming word for wife

34:42

is trouble in strife, So I imagine

34:45

that probably doesn't go over very well if you don't

34:47

call your wife that with a

34:49

smile, like you're joking kind of thing.

34:51

So I think that's the that's the

34:53

current use of it, But

34:56

I mean it's it was used and it's still in use,

34:58

and there's still new words like um passion

35:00

becks is the word for

35:03

sex. Really that's pretty new.

35:06

Apparently Britney spears can

35:08

be used for beers, which is great, and

35:11

I saw one um Nelson

35:13

mandela if you're getting a stella

35:15

artois, Yeah, is a Nelson

35:17

Mandela for Stella. So the

35:19

fact that it's still evolving, still

35:22

being contributed to new like these

35:24

existing words are being replaced with

35:26

new ones. Um,

35:28

and the fact that it's a hundred and fifty years

35:30

old. I mean, there's got to be some thing

35:33

to it that makes it more more

35:36

I think. I think it's that it's just so

35:39

hard to understand until someone explains

35:41

it to you. I think it's fun. I think

35:43

it's a few fold. It's fun. It's fun.

35:46

It's fun. It's uh,

35:49

there is a code to it, and part

35:51

of the fun is that I think his friends maybe trying to

35:53

make something up and having it catch on.

35:56

It's almost like a game, like a word game.

35:59

Yeah, bit, did

36:01

you just go a bit? And

36:05

then um,

36:07

the the unique britishness

36:10

of it all, Yeah, is

36:12

has a lot to do with it. I think. Yeah, because even

36:14

though it got exported to Australia, no

36:16

one associates it with Australia. Sorry Australia.

36:18

But if we, like, if it really took off in America

36:21

with hipsters, people in Britain would probably

36:23

be like, forget it. It's flowing the

36:25

it's flow, well, what is flowing the coop? What could

36:28

you say, for Coop, it's

36:31

on the gwynethan the

36:33

goop, so the Gwyneth,

36:35

it's flowing the Gwyneth. Okay,

36:39

we'll see that. One might catch on. They can do this all day.

36:42

Some of them aren't so good, but other ones are

36:45

gems. The why of it all though, to

36:47

begin with, I thought was interesting. Um,

36:49

I asked you why, and you said you don't know. You

36:51

said, why is it sticking around? I mean, why did it start

36:53

to begin with? And I think, you

36:56

know, it makes a pretty good point that they're just

36:58

rhyming, period is all. He has been a thing,

37:01

even in the States, and he uses examples

37:04

like see you later, alligator after a while, crocodile,

37:07

Like I remember saying that when I was a kid, I just

37:09

said that yesterday. Did you really see

37:11

you later, alligator? There's

37:13

just something about it. Maybe it's the child like nature

37:15

of it that's fun. It makes old people

37:17

feel young again. Yeah, it's I mean,

37:19

like it takes something boring and adds a little

37:22

flare to it, you know, or like Yiddish,

37:24

like a fancy shmancy people

37:26

say that kind of stuff all the time. I never associated

37:29

it with Yiddish, but it's absolutely

37:31

is, isn't it. I think so. I

37:34

mean not outright Yiddish, but uh

37:37

Yeish culture, I think so. Um,

37:40

But yeah, it is strange. It is strange

37:42

that it started to begin with, and

37:45

like I wish there was a definite like

37:48

person zero that we could

37:50

point to, and you know, on

37:53

the streets of London and someone thought it was

37:55

funny and then they told two friends

37:57

and so on and so on. Richie

38:01

Ritchie started it, and POTSI and Ralph

38:03

Mouth took it from there and it just kept spreading

38:05

like wildfire. You got anything else? Yes,

38:08

I found a two thousand twelve survey

38:11

by the Museum of London and

38:14

uh, it's set off a bunch of articles

38:16

about how Cockney Ryman's slang

38:18

is dying. But if you read the article,

38:20

it says that respondents

38:23

believed it was dying, which means

38:25

six don't believe it's dying. So

38:28

yeah, and then they go on to talk about how

38:30

there's all these you know, new words that are

38:33

being replaced and added. So I don't think it's going

38:35

anywhere. I think it's usage

38:37

is become more ironic and everything, but it's

38:39

still like most most

38:41

Britains still understand porky

38:44

pies means lies like,

38:46

don't tell me any porkies, give it to me straight.

38:49

Well, I think it was good we were able to sit here

38:51

and have a good rabbit and pork or

38:54

torque. Apparently

38:56

rabbit and pork is talk. But

38:59

oh, that was one other thing the studying

39:02

this. There's reasons people study this. It gives

39:04

you a window into the past. For

39:06

example, pronunciations, yes, so

39:09

farthing used to be um

39:11

a Camden, well farthings

39:14

like a quarter penny that they don't use anymore, but

39:16

it used to be called it Camden after Camden gardens,

39:19

which tells linguists if they would get

39:21

off their dust and study this thing that

39:23

um, they used to pronounce farthings

39:26

as fardens. Oh, interesting,

39:28

or at least it's something that rhyme

39:31

closely to gardens. But

39:33

that's why people study this allegedly.

39:35

Amazing. Well, if you want to know more about Cockney

39:37

rhyming slang, get yourself a great Cockney

39:40

rhyming dictionary and go to England and just start

39:42

talking up the storm. They

39:44

love. They can't get enough. They'll treat you like one of their

39:46

own. That's right. And since we said that

39:48

it's time for listener mate. Uh,

39:52

Satanic Panic. We just re release

39:55

that as a Saturday Select. I think that was

39:58

Was that one of your picture one of mine?

40:00

I don't know, I'm not sure, but it was. It was a good

40:02

pick for October. One of our favorite episodes

40:04

I think of all time, and we got a lot

40:07

of people emailing again about it

40:09

after listening to it for the first time. Hey,

40:12

guys, listen to say Tanna Panic and

40:14

realize. I had a story about that. I grew up in a suburb of

40:16

California. By the teenage years,

40:18

I've become what you might call goth. Were

40:20

black, spike, jewelry, dark makeup, and all

40:23

that stuff. My town had a ten pm

40:25

curfew, and one night when I was fourteen, my friends and I were

40:27

walking home after curfew got pulled

40:29

over by the cops. They questioned and searched

40:31

us, then called the parents, except for mine. I'm

40:34

not sure why, but the officer insisted

40:36

on driving me home. Once there, he also

40:38

demanded to come inside my home. I

40:41

was too scared to argue, so I let him in. He

40:43

went to my bedroom. This is getting

40:45

creepy. I was really worried

40:47

about where this was headed. He went to my bedroom,

40:49

which is full of posters of Marilyn Manson in

40:52

the Crow and stuff like that, and he started going through

40:54

my things. What he told me he was concerned

40:57

because Satanists are out there, and then if

40:59

I wasn't careful, I'd find myself sacrificed.

41:01

He told me there were rituals and barns that require

41:03

virgins, and I should rethink my lifestyle

41:06

before I got raped or hurt. I

41:09

thanked him for his concern, and I quietly said

41:11

everything nice that I could to get

41:13

him out of my house before he woke up my

41:15

father situation. This happened

41:18

in two thousand. After hearing

41:20

your episode today, it's hard to believe that the residue

41:22

that the Satanic panic would still be around

41:25

then, especially in the police force. Just

41:27

to be clear, the suburb I lived and had very little

41:29

crime, so the officer was very surprising.

41:32

Indeed, my boys and I love

41:34

your show. I recommend it to everyone that

41:36

is from Lisa g Really

41:40

something, Lisa, I know, kind of disturbing.

41:42

Yeah, like I don't I don't know if that cop

41:44

was a good guy. I don't know. It started

41:46

to go down a pretty creepy road there. It really did.

41:49

Yeah, maybe he was just looking for some pod

41:51

or something coming

41:53

up with a cover story. I gotta

41:55

get in your room and go through your stuff. You've

41:58

got any weed? Yeah? Really? I

42:01

was relieved to know that it just ended in

42:03

the coup leaving, but I agreed

42:05

you went above and beyond and not in a

42:07

good way. Right. Well, thanks a lot Lisa

42:09

and Glade that you made it through that and that you

42:12

and your boys are listening to Stuff you Should Know. Could

42:14

you get any cooler? I don't think so.

42:16

Well, if you want to be cool like Lisa and her

42:18

boys, you can get in touch with this by going on to

42:21

Stuff you Should Know, checking out our social

42:23

links there, and as always, send

42:25

us an email to Stuff podcast at iHeart

42:27

radio dot com.

42:31

Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios.

42:34

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42:36

Heart Radio is at the iHeart Radio app, Apple

42:38

Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.