A lot of tom and a bit of foolery
JOHNNY GRIMOND
THOUGH disapproving of course, I could not help but admire the old-timers who passed the Easter weekend last year drilling their way into a vault in Hatton Garden. I sensed a whiff of Ealing comedy in the dust-filled air. At least one of the codgers travelled to and from the job by bus and train, making use of a pensioner’s freedom pass (apparently stolen). Since he didn’t own a mobile phone, he borrowed his son’s. Another old boy took his insulin along. And a third was later recorded using Cockney rhyming slang, referring to jewellery as ‘tom’, as in ‘tomfoolery’. Perhaps it’s the refined circles in which I move, but I don’t hear much of that these days.
In fact, you can find it easily enough on the internet, where new expressions are recorded all the time. Some are quite enjoyable: ‘Osama bin Laden’, for example, is said to mean ‘pardon’ and ‘Canary Wharf’, just as inappropriately, means ‘dwarf’. I doubt whether these will catch on, but an ‘Ayrton Senna’ (a tenner) may fare better, as may ‘Emma Freuds’, which supersede the paternal ‘Clement Freuds’ as a term for haemorrhoids.
Television shows like Minder, Porridge and Only Fools and Horses help to keep rhyming slang going, at least in the fictional world of lovable rogues. But establishing new expressions is difficult, particularly in the abbreviated form that insiders like best. A phrase is certainly more likely to be used if it is short, which helps to explain why ‘hair’ has long been ‘barnet’, not ‘Barnet Fair’, and ‘jail’ has been ‘bucket’, not ‘bucket and pail’. However, the pleasure of the shortened phrase does not lie in brevity alone, for much of it comes from knowing, or guessing, that ‘me old china’ (plate) is ‘my old mate’ and ‘he’s elephants’ (trunk) means ‘he’s drunk’. Here, as so often in English cant, there is satisfaction to be had from identifying yourself as a member of an in-group.
Some of the self-congratulation may be misplaced. Many East Enders, and even those in a diaspora that extends to places like Leighton Buzzard and Romford, have nothing but scorn for the pseudo-cockneys or Mockneys who affect an East End accent and adopt East Enders’ expressions. Even so, rhyming slang would have died out completely had it not spread, and it continues to provide enjoyment far beyond the Cockney heartland in Cheapside where the nottoo-hard of hearing can still discern the bells of St Mary-le-bow.
There isn’t much certainty about the origins of pink meringue. It was certainly established by the 1850s, probably by traders who wanted to talk to each other without being understood by their customers. Most people also think it was the argot of criminals, though that may simply reflect the belief that, if it was used by East Enders, not always regarded as the most upstanding of urban Victorians, then it was the idiom of the underworld.
If so, it seems fitting that the elderly vault-robbers are the most notable of its modern users. They seem to have spoken it quite naturally, with no self-awareness. So do we all, when we talk of ‘brass tacks’ ( facts), suggest ‘use your loaf’ (of bread – head), or blow ‘raspberries’– raspberry tarts ( farts). But when we use it more deliberately, we often choose it for its wit and ingenuity, which are sometimes tinged with slight subversiveness. Isn’t there a hint of mockery in calling the Flying Squad the ‘Sweeny Todd’ or in referring to a fart (again) as a ‘D’oyly Carte’, or even a ‘cupid’s dart’? Come to think of it, ‘tomfoolery’ puts jewellery nicely in its place.