I would imagine
most people have come across rhyming slang at some time or other, even if
only in the movies - and may not even have realised it. It is sort of
texting in reverse - whereas texting abbreviates the actual words, rhyming
slang is a longer version.
A lot of the phrases
themselves have become shortened over the years e.g. Joanna (Piano), Tit for
Tat (Hat) is shortened to "Titfer" and "I'm Boracic"
means "I have no money".
The following lists some
of the good old originals, whereas others have been added more recently.
As Ken
Dryden points out "A lot of rhyming slang seems to be very localised and a lot of it very ephemeral (coming in and going out of use very quickly).
For example, back in the 1970's a pint of Gary Glitter was a pint of bitter but I doubt that's been used for over 30 years now. Likewise I was asked at cricket the other week if I fancied going for a Pascal Chimbonda! Now, the said Mr Chimbonda is a current Premiership footballer and I was actually being asked if I wanted to go for a stroll (WANDER) round the boundary with some of the other players. I suspect that particular phrase will have a very, very short lifespan!
