Rhyming Slang - History

History

Rhyming slang is believed to have originated in the mid-19th century in the East End of London, with several sources suggesting some time in the 1840s.

According to Partridge (1972:12), it dates from around 1840 and arose in the East End of London, however John Camden Hotten in his 1859 Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant and Vulgar Words states that (English) rhyming slang originated "about twelve or fifteen years ago" (i.e. in the 1840s) with 'chaunters' and 'patterers' in the Seven Dials area of London. (The reference is to travelling salesmen of certain kinds. Chaunters sold sheet music and patterers offered cheap, tawdry goods at fairs and markets up and down the country). Hotten's Dictionary included a "Glossary of the Rhyming Slang", the first known such work. It included later mainstays such as "Frog and toad—the main road" and "Apples and pears—stairs" as well as many that later grew more obscure, e.g. "Battle of the Nile—a tile (vulgar term for a hat)", "Duke of York—take a walk", and "Top of Rome—home".

It remains a matter of speculation whether rhyming slang was a linguistic accident, a game, or a cryptolect developed intentionally to confuse non-locals. If deliberate, it may also have been used to maintain a sense of community. It is possible that it was used in the marketplace to allow traders to talk amongst themselves in order to facilitate collusion, without customers knowing what they were saying. Another suggestion is that it may have been used by criminals (see thieves' cant) to confuse the police.

Read more about this topic:  Rhyming Slang

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.
    Terri Apter (20th century)

    The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.
    Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)

    Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.
    Thomas Paine (1737–1809)