In Cockney rhyming slang, apples and pears is a synonym for “stairs,” and dustbin lids means kids. Plus, sniglets are clever coinages for things we don’t already have words for. Any guesses what incogsneeto means? It’s the...
That sputtering noise when someone sticks out their tongue, puts their lips together, and blows is called a raspberry. No one knows the origin of this slang term, although it may have to do with that pileup of consonants colliding in the middle of...
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.”...
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...