Andy in Kenosha, Wisconsin, says co-workers call double-time pay for Sundays and certain holidays working double bubble. The expression is known in Britain as rhyming slang for double pay for overtime, holiday work, or after-hours shifts, with the rhyme doing more work than any literal sense of bubble. British prison slang also uses double bubble for a loan that must be repaid two-for-one, such as owing two pounds after borrowing one. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Double Bubble” Means Double Pay for Overtime in British Rhyming Slang”
Andy from Kenosha, Wisconsin has a question for us, Grant.
He says, my coworkers refer to double time pay periods as double bubble.
This happens during Sundays and during select holidays.
So you’re working something outside the normal shift and you get double pay.
I guess so.
Double bubble.
Double bubble.
Yeah.
I thought that was bubble gum.
It is.
There’s a bubble gum called Double Bubble.
What’s interesting about this is that he’s in Wisconsin.
I know this is a British term.
It comes from some of the traditional rhyming slang in the UK.
And there it literally means the same thing.
You get paid double pay for overtime, usually on the holidays or after hours, the overnight shift, that kind of thing.
There’s also a prison slang term, also British, which is if I loan you money so you can buy something in the commissary, you owe me Double Bubble, which is double back.
If I give you a dollar or if I give you a pound, you owe me two pounds back.
Okay, so it’s just sort of rhyming.
And there’s a couple other slang meanings of double bubble, but really the bubble part isn’t important.
It’s the double part.
We do this in English with reduplication and rhyming terms like that.
Okay, and he’s in Wisconsin, so elsewhere in the country it’s double water fountain, right?
Could it be?
If you use the term double bubble, I’d like to know about it, where you picked it up,
Because I think of it as being British, but maybe I’m just out of touch with what’s happening in the American workplace.
Let’s find out. 877-929-9673.
Or send your answers and questions in email to words@waywordradio.org.
