Cockney rhyming slang might be the most valuable contribution to the English language to ever come out of Britain. I was pleased to discover its existence from the renowned travel writer Jamie Maslin during a shared hiatus in Kazakhstan, but also shocked that a learned scholar such as myself remained ignorant of it for so long.
Rhyming slang phrases are derived from taking an expression which rhymes with a word and then using that expression instead of the word. For example the word "look" rhymes with "butcher's hook". In many cases the rhyming word is omitted - so you won't find too many Londoners having a "bucher's hook" at this site, but you might find a few having a "butcher's".That's courtesy of cockneyrhymingslang.co.uk. Clearly there is rhyme here, but never any reason. I think that's the beauty of rhyming slang: it's got less sense than an initial glance at that slab of stone pictured a top. That's the Rosetta Stone by the way, they got it at the British Museum. You know, the rock they named the software after? Turns out, it's designed to make sense.
Rhyming slang confused the hell out of me for awhile, but I've started getting it down. I collocate the word in question, and then find a rhyme for the most likely pair, and I usually work it out.
Still don't get it? The Wikipedia page is pretty straight forward.
Sadly, it's just contrived and unnatural when a septic like myself tries to use it. Still it's helpful to understand, just in case rhyming slang gets thrown on the critical language list for the US foreign service. Having a bit of that, along with Korean, would really boost me in the selection process.
Just remember, collocate, rhyme, and Robert's your father's brother.
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