This article came up in another forum and I immediately thought of our late lamented friend Cholmondeley_Warner.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ing-slang.html

Lee Ann

(And the second cw mention w/i a few minutes. So missed)

Bless his heart, I suspect that he invented a lot of it.
If there is an afterlife, I wonder if he has been introduced to Miss Austen

Would you Adam and Eve it?

I miss him too.

While CW would understand Cockney, I don't think he was one. Very few as all about sounds of Bow Bells etc. Still it is good to remember his straight shooting

The whole point of it is that it's constantly reinvented between relatively small groups of people, like a lot of slang(s), and occasionally just for its own sake, as a bit of a joke. I doubt if a lot of the examples quoted were ever widely used.

Patrick is right. Within a small group Rhyming Slang is still very much alive and still evolving as shown by the modern references used. One genuinely does hear "Get the Britneys in" = "Go to the bar and buy the beers" and "I'm just going for a Brad (Pitt)." I won't translate that one and apologise for lowering the tone.

I remember two particular work colleagues who used Rhyming slang a great deal. Admittedly they were of the older generation. One of the also habitually referred to his wife as "'Er Indoors," from a 80s show about London low life called Minder.

Rhyming slang is alive and well all over the UK. Most dash for lunch, I'm Hank Marvin.

I miss him too, janisj.

Lee Ann