Conference thebay::joyoflex

    
    Which is always at its best and most confusing when only the first
    half of the phrase is used as in :
    
    	Titfer ...	("Where's me titfer ... ?")
    	Apples ...      ("Time to go up the apples ...")
    	Butchers ...	("Take a butchers at this ...")
    
    
    
    Other C.r.s. I've heard :
    
    	North and south		("Shut your north and south ...")
    	Mince pies		("Can't keep me mince pies open ...")
    	Plates of meat		("Been on me plates of meat all day ...")
	Dog and bone		("Give me a bell on the dog and bone ...")
	Tea leaf		("Don't trust him, he's a tea leaf ...")
    	Rosy Lee		("I'd love a cup of Rosy Lee ...")
    
    There's lots more when I get my brain going, and I'm not even a 
    Londoner ...

    I've spent ages dipping into dictionaries of CRS (thanks for the TLA),
    heard a good few self-styled experts, in radio/tv interviews, (which
    gave the impression that there was a whole world of CRS out there,
    waiting to be discovered) and heard (somewhere) a real-live Cockney -
    who said that a lot of the academical folk-industry about CRS was hooey
    (huey?), probably sponsored by the London Tourist Board (if there
    is such a thing).
    
    This reductivist-minimalist Cockney held that `real CRS' was
    invented to confuse the police (especially the Sweeney [& Todd -
    Flying Squad]) and that many of the more popular examples of CRS
    (he cited `dog and bone') were contrived and artificial
    (even though some people use them when they're pretending to
    be Cockney).
    
    If he's right, I think the term `_Cockney_ Rhyming Slang' is a
    misnomer, because the argot itself - in this new form - isn't Cockney
    any more (this gets pretty confusing when a Cockney-speaker
    introduces a rhymed expression into a particular trade, which
    adopts the expression with the justifiable impression that
    they're using CRS - as happens among Professional Wrestlers
    (in Britain) for whom `Doing your Gregory' means feigning
    an injury to the neck. 
    
    Of course, that doesn't make it any the less interesting when
    it comes to tracing the etymology of terms like `berk' [said to be from
    `Berkshire Hunt] or `porridge' [meaning a spell in prison, `doing
    time', `borage and thyme'], `tart' [sweet-heart], or `raspberry'
    [r. tart - fart].
    
    Another source of harmless amusement is the coining of new Ryming Slang
    expressions.  For years, I've been fighting a one-man battle for the
    recognition of the expression `Do us a Rodney' [from Rodney Laver -
    favour]. 
    

    bob [known at school as Bob the Knob]

    > bob [known at school as Bob the Knob]

               Re .2
               Yes according to sources like Mayhew's "London Labour
               and the London Poor" and more recent books such as
               Kellow Chesney's "The Victorian Underworld" Cockney
               rhyming slang was developed from Costermongers cant
               and it was in fact, they being in general unlicensed
               street traders, used to confuse the police.
               Like most underworld slang by the time it becomes known
               to the general public it has already lost its original
               purpose.
    
               BTW Sweeney Todd (the Demon Barber) [I don't know if
               he was real or a Victorian London urban legend] was
               supposed to have been a barber who cut the throats
               of his customers, twirled the seat round and dropped
               them into the kitchen of the local pie shop where they
               finished up as part of the ingredients.
    
               The story in various forms was sold for years by street
               sellers of "penny bloods" as they were called.
    
               p.s. re .3 Thanks Jeff I was extremely curious as well
                    but didn't dare ask.
                                Max                                                         
            

    Combination of spoonerism and a simple rhyme.
    
    b

Old Etonian :- " I'm a Merchant Banker."

Cockney :- "Really? I didn't think you public schoolboys new Rhyming Slang!!"

			rik......

There is one expressions which I have heard quite a few times, but for which
I can't work out any sort of derivation - "drum" meaning house or home (or
something!). Does anyone where this comes from?

Chris.

Is there more to the expression ?  Usually the rhyming slang in multi-
word which may help the translation.

e.g. North & South = mouth
     plates of meat = feet

    G'day, 
    
    Yes this turns up in Oz also. "here's the drum" means 'here is
    the information', often in the form of gossip - possibly from native
    (african) talking drums spreading the news. This is as opposed to 'The
    good oil' which is fact or truth.
    
    derek

       I don't have any evidence of a documentary nature but...
       
       I don't think drum is Cockney rhyming slang.  I think you'll find 
       it's criminal or police slang, though what it derives from I've no 
       idea.
       
       The last time I heard it was a policeman of my acquaintance saying 
       they'd "turned over X's drum", meaning they had searched it 
       looking for evidence.
       
       Nick

    
    Could well be 'Bass Drum' => base. 
    
    Richard.

    Until my current manager arrived - who is an incorrigible C.R.S.'er,
    the most frequently mouthed expression I'd heard was - "Noah".
    
    This is usually heard in the context of the person about to cop the
    earful standing near deep water, in a boat, swimming, or anything where
    there's other lifeforms (usually much more at home in it than humans)
    in the water with the hapless one.
    
    So next time you go swimming, watch out for the Noah's...
    
    David
    
    
    
    		Noah	->	Noah's Ark	->	Shark

    .11 sounds good to me. I thought about `drum beat' - beat (habitual haunt)
    `drum stick' - nick (police station), `side drum' - hide, `snare drum'
    lair, `hi-hat' - flat, and lots more. `Bass drum' sounds more probable.
    
    And the absence of the rhyming word doesn't make derivation from CRS
    less likely; it just makes the derivation more obscure. That was the 
    reason for the original use of CRS as a thieves' argot. A few examples:
    Berk (from `Berkshire Hunt'), pony (from `pony and trap'),  rasperry
    (from `raspberry tart') (the equivalents for these three are left as an
    exercise for the reader); tom - meaning jewellery (tom foolery);
    porridge - meaning time spent in prison (borage and thyme); bird -
    meaning the same (bird and lime). Maybe `stir' has something to do with
    `porridge' too (that's a supposition - the rest are facts: whether they
    are all cockney may be open to doubt in some cases - but anyway, as I
    said in .2, the thing that people call `Cockney Rhyming Slang' is
    widely used and developed hundreds of miles from the sound of Bow
    Bells).
    
    b

    From an American friend who spent some time in Oz digging graves:
    
    	Yank	-->	Tank	-->	Septic Tank	-->	Septic

    Here's a few more for the book:
    
    Pigs (Ear)			Beer  		Go for one
    Ball (of Chalk)		Walk            after one
    Tod (Malone)                Own             on one's
    Frog (& Toad)		Road            down the
    2&8				State           and get in a
    Rub (A Dub Dub)		Pub             in the
    Apples (& Pears)		Stairs          and fall down the
    Loaf (of Bread)		Head            and land on your
    Crate(s) (of Eggs)		Legs            and maybe break your
    
    Trouble (& Strife)		Wife            so you get an earful off
    						your
    Berk(shire Hunt)            Yeah            for being a				
    
    
    On the subject of 'drums'.  A possibility is that this is linked to the
    fact that police raids are known as 'busts', which would give the term 
    'to bust his drum' - to put out of circulation/action.  Who knows?
    
    - Daz