On Tuesday, I was talking to an American friend on Zoom at 6:30 am Canberra time. He couldn’t stop laughing when I told him that it was rare for me to get up at ‘sparrow’s fart’ (i.e. very early in the morning). He’d never heard that phrase before. He was also shocked to hear that Americans, in Australian Rhyming Slang are called ‘septic tanks’ (rhymes with ‘yanks’), that I and many others often shorten to ‘seppos’ which, for Americans makes it doubly incomprehensible.
Rhyming slang is a form of slang in which a word or phrase is replaced by another phrase whose last word rhymes with the original word. Often, the rhyming word (e.g. “farm,” “strife,” “Quist,” “bread”) is then omitted, making the expression opaque to outsiders. Hence the befuddlement of my American china.
For example:
Loaf of bread = head, as in ‘use your loaf’.
Trouble and strife = wife, as in ‘my trouble is waiting for me’.
Dog and bone = phone, as in ‘use the dog and bone’.
Captain Cook = look, as in ‘have a captain cook at that’
Butcher’s hook = look, as in ‘have a butchers at that’.
Dead horse = sauce, as in ‘do you want some dead horse on your pie?’
Adrian Quist = pissed (i.e. drunk), as in ‘don’t give him any more, he’s adrian’.
Barry Crocker = a shocker, as in ‘he had a barry crocker of a game’.
Jimmy Brits = the shits, as in ‘he gives me the jimmies’.
Billy lids = kids, as in ‘where are the billy lids?’
Buckley and Nunn = no chance, as in ‘he’s got buckleys’.
Pat Malone = alone, as in ‘I’m on my Pat tonight’.
Ginger ale = tail, as in ‘why is the car behind me up my ginger?
China plate = mate, as in ‘how are you going, china?’
Merchant banker = wanker, as in ‘he’s a bit of an merchant banker.’
Joe Blake = snake, as in ‘watch out for joe blakes around here’
Noah’s Ark = shark, as in ‘the beach is closed because they spotted a noah’s ark’.
Optic nerve = perve, as in ‘have an optic at that sheila’.
Oxford scholar = dollar, as in ‘you couldn’t lend me a few oxfords could you?’
Pen and ink = stink, as in ‘there is a hell of a pen and ink here.’
Pork pie = lie, as in ‘did you tell a porky?’
Jimmy Grant = immigrant, as in ‘is he a jimmy grant?’
Brown bread = dead, as in ‘he’s upset because his mate is brown bread.’
Reg Grundys = undies (underpants), as in ‘don’t forget to pack some reggies’.
Snake’s hiss = piss (urinate), as in I’m dying for a snakes’.
Plates of meat = feet, as in ‘that lad has big plates of meat’.
Warwick farm = arm, as in ‘what’s that under your warwick?’1
Its emergence has been traced to the 1840s, in the east end of London when the locals were trying to make a living through various means and required a way to communicate so that passers-by, particularly anyone from the police, would not be able to understand what they were saying2.
Rhyming slang was a well-known linguistic phenomenon in Australia in the first years of the 20th century, and that it had been around for some time with its origins in the cockney dialect of east London. The very first example of an Australian rhyming slang term (jimmy grant = immigrant) can be traced back to 1844. This very early date takes Australian rhyming slang as far back as it origin in London. In John Camden Hotten’s Slang Dictionary, published in 1859, it is stated that rhyming slang had only been observed ‘twelve to fifteen years’ before. Many of the rhyming slang terms found in Australian English are also found and have their origins in the speech of London’s east end3.
Rhyming slang has fascinated me and while I do not use it often, I do occasionally, and most of the instances I list above are familiar.
Sources