Cockney Rhyming Slang
East London’s special language has given many words to popular English speech
Visitors to London are often puzzled by the strange expressions used by many of its inhabitants in their everyday speech, as in “Hello, me old china, fancy a butchers at me new jam jar? Hey, I like your whistle! How’s the trouble and strife?” These are examples of Cockney rhyming slang, and there are five in the quote just given.
One thing to make clear is that not all Londoners are Cockneys, but their slang has spread far beyond their “zone”, and many examples have become common expressions in the English of people who have never lived anywhere near London. To be strictly accurate, a Cockney is someone who was born within the sound of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow church, which is just to the east of St Paul’s Cathedral. However, the bells are not heard very often these days, and even when they do sound, the noise of the modern city has limited their range considerably. For practical purposes, a Cockney can be reckoned to be a working-class Londoner who lives in the east end.
Rhyming slang appears to have emerged around the 1840s among traders who sold goods from carts or stalls and were known as costermongers. It is possible that the slang developed as a form of private language with a view to confusing anyone who was not…