2 ms·

Where is the rhyming connection here?

• lordnacho 6y ago
  Good question, it would be hidden. You'd ask a guy wtf "Lady Godiva" meant and he'd say "Fivah". The animals for numbers, I don't remember. Possibly some connection ages ago that you similarly needed to have the story for.
  • kencausey 6y ago
    Ah, I incorrectly inferred that you were involved in the creation of the slang.
• JdeBP 6y ago
  It is London slang, but it isn't necessarily Rhyming slang. In fact, these terms are generally understood to have originated as racing/bookmakers' slang, and go back to at least the end of the 18th century. This is a 19th century slang dictionary. * https://archive.org/details/slangdictionarye00hottuoft/page/258/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/slangdictionarye00hottuoft/page/...
  • 082349872349872 6y ago
    One of those lemmata casts doubt on the veracity of "Port Out, Starboard Home." I also enjoyed the dual meanings of pot-walloper, similar to "cutting coupons" shifting semantics at opposite ends of the NRS social grades.
  • kencausey 6y ago
    At first I was skeptical and assumed that you had not realized the parent comment to which I had replied. But I checked and was still skeptical when I checked 'monkey' but indeed there was an alternate definition that was numerical. However I can't find one for 'donkey'. But maybe the parent's memory is faulty or more recent slang has added these numerical denotations in a greater context than just the parent's past workplace.