It’s Friday night. Fancy a ruby washed down with a couple of britneys? Baffled?

What if I reminded you that Britney’s surname is Spears (which rhymes with beers), and told you that Ruby is Ruby Murray, another popular female singer, but one whose heyday was in the 50s? And Murray rhymes with curry … there, you’ve got it.

This is an example of rhyming slang, that strange form of wordplay popular with Cockneys, or those who wish to appear to be Cockney. Typically in rhyming slang a phrase is chosen whose second element rhymes with the word in question (stairs/apples and pears) and the second rhyming  element is generally dropped (so apples = stairs). Another example is head/loaf of bread, so use your loaf =use your head. As time went on the names of places, events and people tended to be used more (Barnet Fair = hair; Tony Blairs = flares). More.

See: Macmillan Dictionary Blog

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