A Cockney phrase that has made it into mainstream English is, "Getting down to brass tacks." Brass is hard, and tacks rhymes with facts. So "brass tacks" means "hard facts."
I've read that using "bread" to mean "money" is another. "Bread and honey", drop the "and honey". Also, when making a sound of a "fart", it is called a "raspberry", short for "raspberry tart".
@@ericjohnson7530 Correct and a few more 'Arris = Aristotle = Bottle and Glass = Arse Macaroni = Pony = Pony & Trap = Crap (Sh*t) Screw your Loaf = Loaf of Bread = Head Two & Eight = State As in "You've got me in a right Two & Eight" used a lot by my Mum when I was kid! Mince Pies = Eyes North & South = Mouth Hampstead Heath = Teeth As in "Did you see that geezers Hampstead's"? Boat Race = Face (Oxford and Cambridge annual race on the river Thames in London) Trouble and Strife = Wife Gregory = Gregory Peck = Neck as in get that down your Gregory (usually a beer) Ruby = Ruby Murray = Curry Far too many others to mention
I have seen "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" so many times and never knew that the "nice cup of Rosy Lee" that Mr. Beaver mentions is just a cup of tea...
+Genta Also: Mr. van Dyke was not a trained dancer, he moved very well though. Choreographers knew this and modified his routines to accommodate what he could do well. He also removed himself from the really intricate sections of dance numbers: From the Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang DVD: "...the dance sequence took 4 days to film. There was therefore plenty of time for Dick van Dyke to rest between takes. In addition, during a featurette with Dick Van Dyke on the special edition DVD he says he was not a dancer and never trained as a dancer so all the dance sequences were difficult for him to make look good. Because of the intricacies in that scene perhaps it was decided best to let the pros handle it instead of making production even longer with continuous takes to get it right."
Well there's that Infamous Obama Time Machine again... Now tell us all how TheEvilOBAMAMONSTER engineered Pearl Harbor and the Great Depression. We're all waiting with baited breath... *facepalm.
And to be fair, Mister Disney wanted his audience to understand what the actors said so they could make money. Actors try to lose their English accents
+Genta Saw a "the making of" film about Mary Poppins, a husband and wife team had arranged the choreography and spoke of how physically demanding the "Step in Time" sequence was for all, especially Van Dyke who was more used to using his innate agility for pratfalls instead of dancing. Still love the film, seeing Dame Julie at the top of her game and Ed Wynn turning in his sweetly funny "Uncle Albert" performance shortly before his death.
I moved to South London and lived there for 11 years. I think I was still learning the language when I left. There were common everyday phrases that you learned pretty quick, but others that still confounded me years after I thought I had properly assimilated. A cheeky half usually ended up being anything but, geez and guv referred to your mates and your boss, and 'er indoors was who you went home to every evening. I once asked a colleague for a favor and she told be to "get down on yer biscuits". I had no idea what she was talking about.
+Cassie Pena My mother was English and when I was a kid I spent a great deal of time trying unsuccessfully to figure out what she was talking about. Dad being a practical Texan fixed it for me..Son their English, their beer is warm, they spell Car Tyre (Tire) with a Y and they drive on the wrong side of the road. Don't try to figure them out. True story. Then there is the Thames River, pronounced Tims River not THAMES river, with a A.
+merlin6363 English is not a phonetic language as different groups of letters can be pronounced many different ways. The River Thames is pronounced Tems. Please note that in the UK (and elsewhere) the word 'river' come before the actual name.
+Terry Wiltshire Now I can never keep a straight face when I think about Dragons: Riders of Berk! (That's an animated series based on the How to Train Your Dragon films.)
+James Mansbridge or "Merchant Banker". Fun fact: when I worked in banking, years before any scandals or crashes, we used to routinely call Midland Bank "Muddle and Blank" and not without good reason.
I like how some Cockney rhyming slang has made its way into the common English lexicon, even here in the US. Example: Blow a raspberry (tart). Language is so fascinating!
My family has been enjoying Anglophenia. A couple ideas for episodes we'd be interested in seeing are differences in healthcare (surgeries vs. doctors offices, casualty department vs. emergency room, national healthcare, waiting lists, pharmacies uses in each place, etc.) and differences in things related to driving (side driver sits on, boot vs. trunk, bonnet vs. hood, motorway vs. interstate, roundabouts, liters vs. gallons of petrol/gas, etc.).
Dirty Robot . Elephant's is short for Elephant's Trunk which means drunk. So a boot (car or footwear) would be a Daisy as in Daisy Root. But basicly different areas and different times produce different combinations. I met plenty of blokes in the army from as far away as Newcastle and Leeds who use expressions such as Butcher's (Hook) look and Brown (Bread) dead. Even Old Pot and Pan for old man = dad. And dare I say it... Berk, short form of Berkley Hunt.
Yeah, it's a little bit of an odd one that word. It's quite a soft cuss word. I'm sure it can even be used on family telly. While the actual meaning is often considered the most offensive word in the English language.
i can't decide if you are absolutely adorable or totally annoying. Adorable it is. Just too cute. I don't get the "language" but I could listen to you all day.
Arris. That's my favourite. Arris means Arse. Its a double translation process. Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philospher) translates to bottle. Then bottle of glass translates to arse 😉
I remember a former colleague of mine from England sharing some of these with me years ago. The only one I remembered was Septic = an American. I believe the derivation was Septic Tank = Yank.
+Bag full of crabs Sorry ^^ I hadn't meant to be offensive by the comment, and I hadn't thought the comment through. For some reason I had assumed that the majority of viewers were American, so my badstill got those good old youtube subs
Love Anglophenia! I often use cockney rhyming, even though I live in Hertfordshire. It's basically used all around London, and the surrounding areas. Hope Americans can get the hang of all of it! Once you start using it, you can't stop!
This is absolutely amazing! I've always thought I know english pretty well, but never in my life have I heard of cockney riming! In Russia they boast a lot about how complex and and illogical russian language can be, well they should watch this one. P.S. Keep going, I enjoy every single episode of Anglophenia. Looking forward for the next one.
Here's one that's little known. Rank: meaning disgusting or in pleasant. It comes from the military collective term for enlisted soldiers. "RANK AND FILE" ( as in Vile)
See the picture of the TV series "Porridge"? The dark haired guy on the right was Richard Beckinsale, Kate Beckinsale's father, who sadly died very young.
It's fascinating how much Cockney relies on the speaker and the listener coming from a similar place, and knowing the same references. I'm a native Serbo-Croatian speaker and we have nothing like that. Our slang is just slightly altered regular words, and definitely not based on rhyme. This is like the whole next level of encryption!
An excellent one I heard on the radio a few years ago was a caller on TalkSport suggesting that a player might move on to another club. He used the phrase 'up the kermit', which was later explained to mean 'up the road'. As in Kermit the Frog frog and toad road
I remember having to explain Cockney rhyming slang to a foreign friend who watched a lot of TV with subtitles. She would regularly see people making the classic "fart noise" with their mouths, but the subtitles would show *RASPBERRY*, and she had no idea why. I had to explain that it came from Cockney rhyming slang "raspberry tart", which of course, is fart.
My favourite expression has to be: "I'm just popping out for a ruby, alright?" It confuses the hell out most people. It explains why poor Ruby Murray is now synonymous with Indian cuisine rather than her music. [For those that don't know: Ruby Murray = Curry]
01timz - - I'm joking. Every language has its equivalent. In the case of spanish, in Argentina we had Lunfardo, but it felt in oblivion, and there is plenty of many other examples. I didn't know that cockney is so popular in London. Every time I see in TV some "normal people" speaking in London, they speak cockney, to me, or something really close to it.
It could have been a Pony, which is also non-rhyming slang for an amount of money that I can't remember - a real Cockney could tell me how much. And for a 'number one', Jimmy Riddle is still quite common outside Land'n.
I've also heard Tom Tit - and if you add (and then remove) 'and Trap' to 'Pony', then you get the same bodily function to which sinnnerboy referred. Anyway, how come this has started up again?
I love 'Ruby Murray' (a singer from the 50s) meaning 'curry'. It is thought to have been introduced in the British sit-com 'Only Fools and Horses' (set in east London). Can anyone confirm this?
One of my favourites, from Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (a rich fount of rhyming slang generally) is the actor Chevy Chase for face (an alternative to boat, or boat race).
+Karthic D She's probably too old and too upmarket for all of you. Note the Roedean accent and posh surname. Would you see her on the same light if her name was Gladys Shufflebottom? You'd be better off ogling Britney Spears. I can't deny, however, that she is sensationally pretty, but I'd love to see her when she isn't presenting a RU-vid giggle channel - preferably while being either drunk or harassed to hell. (Sorry, Kate. If you will go being a celebrity...)
JJBushfan What are you even on about? I like her channel and enjoy her as a host etc. Are you saying because I'm a lowly American common person (that you know of) I don't stand a chance with her therefor shouldn't like her content? And she would be the sexiest damn Gladys Shufflebottom ever, one who I would love to take on a drunkin date.
GroundPounder 85 I wasn't saying anything of the sort, my dear sir. I have absolutely nothing against lowly and common people, since I'm very much of that ilk myself. (I was only kidding when I suggested Kate might be of a discerning disposition, although if she really did go to Roedean, who knows?) And I had no idea you were American. Seriously, I was only stringing you along in standard English fashion. No offence meant.
I think this is the most mysterious slang because it is so often abbreviated. I keep hearing new ones, like Tommy Trinder here and Scooby. It is truly creative. Like, You have right smelly clares on your plates - Clare Rayner = trainers aka sneakers. Plates (of meet) = feet
astrophonix In my language there are many jewish (Jiddish) words, that are common in Amsterdam. To name a few: "majem" (from mayim, water) usually for the canals; " heitje", meaning a "quarter" (a 25 cents coin) which comes from the alphabet letter Hey, the 5th letter and was used because 25 cents is 5 times a "stuiver", a 5 cents piece, which was the currency mostly used. If you had a 10 guilder note, you had a "joetje", which is from yud, the 10th letter of the alphabet.
Of courses its worth pointing out that Bow bells were destroyed in WW2 and a new peal cast by the Whitechapel bell foundry in 1956 was not hung until 1961. They first rang out in December 61. So close to 20 years there weren't no cockneys born. My old man was a cockney and he was a bell hanger for Whitechapel and was involved in hanging the new peal at Bow
I wish Kate was my personal assistant or I hers. It doesn't matter which, it just would be awesome to spend the day listening to this hilarious beauty.
I remember when I went to live with my aunt when I was a kid because my parents were brown bread. I overheard her say to my uncle that my bedroom would be under the apples and pears. I was only about 11 and I genuinely thought I'd be sleeping under an apple tree in the garden. Thankfully, that was not the case. She meant "under the stairs". And that is where I remained until I received a letter of acceptance from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to begin my journey as a qualified Snow and Blizzard.
