Gabe from Newark and Michigan asks about the fighting challenge “Put up your dukes,” a phrase that treats dukes as fists or hands. A familiar explanation connects it with Cockney rhyming slang: Dukes of York rhymes with fork, once slang for “hand.” The evidence for that route is thin, though, especially because underworld and cant expressions often left few early written traces. A stronger possibility points to a Romany word involving hands, also associated with forms such as dukering for palm reading. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Romani Hands, Cockney Forks, and Put Up Your Dukes”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Gabe Kenneth calling from, Newark and Michigan.
Hi, Gabe. How you doing?
Hey, Gabe.
Well, here’s the thing. My brother and I have a huge rivalry, and every time we get in the competition, we always tell each other to put up each other’s dukes. And we’ve never known where the term comes from. Is it like British royalty fighting each other with their dukes and duchesses? Or, you know, what’s the origin of the term?
You have the same question that a lot of people do, and we’ve never had a really clear, firm etymology on this, but there are a couple of theories that are both interesting and colorful. One of which is that Duke comes from a Romani word, the language associated with people who are called gypsies, but we don’t use that word anymore. But there’s a word in the Romani language, Duke, D-O-O-K, that means the hand. And it could be, you know, put up your hands that way.
The other story is colorful, but there are some problems with it, that it’s a contraction of the phrase Duke of Yorks or Dukes of York. Which are you familiar with Cockney rhyming slang, the slang of East London?
Yes.
So like in Cockney rhyming slang, instead of saying feet, you might say plates of meat. So if I’m standing all day, I might say, oh, my plates of meat are tired. And in Cockney rhyming slang, supposedly Duke of Yorks or Dukes of York is a reference to the term fork, which is a slang term for hand. If you think about it, forks look like hands and you use them to grab things.
So the problem with that is that there aren’t really good citations about that, although a lot of authorities will mention that particular one. Yeah, criminal slang and can’t tends not to be chronicled very accurately or very soon. And so written citations for that are slim. The Romani word is really the best guess. I would agree with Martha. Another spelling of that is D-U-K. There is some palm reading called Dukering, which is D-U-K-K-E-R-I-N-G, which is associated with that group as well. And that word is well chronicled. There’s a direct connection there to the underworld. It’s got a really strong history. It’s probably the most likely source for it.
Okay.
Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. You all don’t actually put up your dukes, do you?
No, I don’t. We usually are playing a game of chess when we bring it up.
Oh, I see. I’m imagining you standing there like Gentleman Jim Corbett in that weird pose with the fist up in front of your face.
As much as I’d like to sometimes, we never result in actual violence.
Excellent. Well, glad to hear it. You just have the gama keys, word battles. Thank you so much. Good talking with you.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
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