English rhyming slang had a short run of popularity in the western U.S., thanks in part to Australians who brought it over (and then, again, thanks to a scene in Ocean’s Eleven). But even in the U.K., it’s now mostly defunct. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “English Rhyming Slang in the US”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, yes. My name is Owen. I’m from western Pennsylvania.
Hello, Owen.
And I have a question.
Based on a previous segment, a question arose.
Why has rhyming slang not taken better hold in the United States as compared to other English-speaking countries?
It’s interesting that you use the word better, so that means that you know that it has taken some hold here, right?
Well, actually, only among certain people who are used to speaking it in that manner.
So let’s say, why has it not taken hold at all?
Well, it has taken hold, and it used to be more common than it is now.
It’s just not that common anymore, even in the U.K.
At this point, it’s kind of an artifact more than it is an ongoing form of language.
But Owen, I think your point is that Cockney rhyming slang is really well known.
Is that what you’re talking about?
That was what I was speaking about, although I would say probably Australian rhyming slang might have been the rationale for it, but I would say it was more Cockney than anything else.
And give us a couple of examples.
Well, I guess one of the hallmark rhyming slangs I have known is a well-known movie from the 1990s, I believe, wherein a typically British individual says, if something goes wrong, we’re in Barney.
And the Americans behind him would look at each other and say, I don’t understand what that is.
They’re in trouble.
We’re in trouble.
And so that was one of the reasons why rhyming slang actually has some recognizable aspects in popular culture.
But there was also another situation where there was a British spy television show, and somebody was called, I believe, a cricket.
And it was based on a changing of a rhyme from, I think, perpetrator or perp, which would be chirp, which would be something which chirps is a cricket.
Interesting.
I believe that that’s where it was coming from.
But most of the times that you hear this probably is going to be in popular culture, right?
You’re going to see it in movies and television shows and read it in books.
At this point, yes.
At this point, because it’s mostly a performance.
It’s color that they throw in.
But as I understand it from my British colleagues, there is some of this happening on the street, but the new production of rhyming slang is almost completely stopped.
It’s almost all the stuff that’s slowly becoming old-fashioned and falling out of use.
But yeah, there was a time in the United States where you could actually find it among certain groups.
And we’re talking Western prisons around San Francisco, particularly in California, where there was a large influx of Australians who brought it with them.
And they tended to be underworld types.
And so they brought their underworld lingo with them.
So the way rhyming slang works is that if you say Barney, it’s short for Barney Rubble.
Yeah.
And that rhymes with trouble.
Right.
So you’re supposed to know that Barney equals trouble.
Right.
Right.
Or dustbin lids for however the wife and kids, I believe.
Yeah.
Most of these have never caught on in American English.
The only one that I think people might have heard of, but even then it’s old fashioned, is a twist for a girl, which would be a twist and a twirl.
Rhymes with girl and then use the word twist to mean girl.
It’s fun. It’s cool. I don’t know why it’s not more widespread.
Because things fall out of fashion. Slang falls out of fashion.
And also it’s kind of self-conscious in a really kind of annoying way that I think it goes against the understated grain of most slang today, which is supposed to be opaque to outsiders, even more opaque than the rhyme would be.
I don’t understand why somebody would purposefully obfuscate our communication.
It’s odd.
Who knows?
Yeah, there’s plenty of accidental obfuscation, right?
Yes, of course.
So excellent.
But thank you very much for the analysis, and I’m grateful to be listening, and I’ll keep up the good work, guys.
Thanks, Owen.
Bye, Owen.
Thank you guys very much.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Thanks.
Email words@waywordradio.org.
