115-715: Rhyming slang is a form of slang word construction in the English language . It is especially prevalent among Cockneys in England, and was first used in the early 19th century in the East End of London ; hence its alternative name, Cockney rhyming slang . In the US, especially the criminal underworld of the West Coast between 1880 and 1920, rhyming slang has sometimes been known as Australian slang . The construction of rhyming slang involves replacing
230-546: A mixed language or a creole —a theory called the Middle English creole hypothesis . Although the great influence of these languages on the vocabulary and grammar of Modern English is widely acknowledged, most specialists in language contact do not consider English to be a true mixed language. English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares innovations with other Germanic languages including Dutch , German , and Swedish . These shared innovations show that
345-502: A raspberry (rude sound of derision) from raspberry tart for "fart"; " D'Oyly Carte " (an opera company) for "fart"; " Jimmy Riddle " (an American country musician) for "piddle" (as in urinate ), " J. Arthur Rank " (a film mogul), " Sherman tank ", " Jodrell Bank " or " ham shank " for " wank ", " Bristol Cities " (contracted to 'Bristols') for "titties", etc. "Taking the Mick" or "taking the Mickey"
460-635: A 2012 official Eurobarometer poll (conducted when the UK was still a member of the EU), 38 percent of the EU respondents outside the countries where English is an official language said they could speak English well enough to have a conversation in that language. The next most commonly mentioned foreign language, French (which is the most widely known foreign language in the UK and Ireland), could be used in conversation by 12 percent of respondents. A working knowledge of English has become
575-437: A Scooby" (from Scooby Doo , the eponymous cartoon dog of the cartoon series ) meaning "I haven't a clue". Rhyming slang is often used as a substitute for words regarded as taboo, often to the extent that the association with the taboo word becomes unknown over time. " Berk " (often used to mean "foolish person") originates from the most famous of all fox hunts , the " Berkeley Hunt " meaning "cunt"; " cobblers " (often used in
690-417: A butcher's", meaning to have a look, originates from "butcher's hook", an S-shaped hook used by butchers to hang up meat, and dates from the late nineteenth century but has existed independently in general use from around the 1930s simply as "butchers". Similarly, "use your loaf", meaning "use your head", derives from "loaf of bread" and also dates from the late nineteenth century but came into independent use in
805-413: A common word with a phrase of two or more words, the last of which rhymes with the original word; then, in almost all cases, omitting, from the end of the phrase, the secondary rhyming word (which is thereafter implied), making the origin and meaning of the phrase elusive to listeners not in the know. The form of Cockney slang is made clear with the following example. The rhyming phrase "apples and pears"
920-651: A distinct language from Modern English and is virtually impossible for 21st-century unstudied English-speakers to understand. Its grammar was similar to that of modern German: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs had many more inflectional endings and forms , and word order was much freer than in Modern English. Modern English has case forms in pronouns ( he , him , his ) and has a few verb inflections ( speak , speaks , speaking , spoke , spoken ), but Old English had case endings in nouns as well, and verbs had more person and number endings. Its closest relative
1035-484: A foreign language, make up the "expanding circle". The distinctions between English as a first language, as a second language, and as a foreign language are often debatable and may change in particular countries over time. For example, in the Netherlands and some other countries of Europe, knowledge of English as a second language is nearly universal, with over 80 percent of the population able to use it, and thus English
1150-584: A friend on the telephone, "How's the trouble and strife?" ("wife"). Cockneys vs Zombies (2012) mocked the genesis of rhyming slang terms when a Cockney character calls zombies "Trafalgars" to even his Cockney fellows' puzzlement; he then explains it thus: " Trafalgar square – fox and hare – hairy Greek – five day week – weak and feeble – pins and needles – needle and stitch – Abercrombie and Fitch – Abercrombie: zombie ". The live-action Disney film Mary Poppins Returns song "Trip A Little Light Fantastic" involves Cockney rhyming slang in part of its lyrics, and
1265-476: A linguistic game among friends or as a cryptolect developed intentionally to confuse non-locals. If deliberate, it may also have been used to maintain a sense of community, or to allow traders to talk amongst themselves in marketplaces to facilitate collusion , without customers knowing what they were saying, or by criminals to confuse the police (see thieves' cant ). The academic, lexicographer and radio personality Terence Dolan has suggested that rhyming slang
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#17328766831861380-520: A more standard version of English. They have many more speakers of English who acquire English as they grow up through day-to-day use and listening to broadcasting, especially if they attend schools where English is the medium of instruction. Varieties of English learned by non-native speakers born to English-speaking parents may be influenced, especially in their grammar, by the other languages spoken by those learners. Most of those varieties of English include words little used by native speakers of English in
1495-688: A number of other Anglic languages, including Scots and the extinct Fingallian dialect and Yola language of Ireland. Like Icelandic and Faroese , the development of English in the British Isles isolated it from the continental Germanic languages and influences, and it has since diverged considerably. English is not mutually intelligible with any continental Germanic language, as it differs in vocabulary , syntax , and phonology . However, some of these, such as Dutch or Frisian, do show strong affinities with English, especially with its earlier stages. Unlike Icelandic and Faroese, which were isolated,
1610-679: A requirement in a number of occupations and professions such as medicine and computing. English has become so important in scientific publishing that more than 80 percent of all scientific journal articles indexed by Chemical Abstracts in 1998 were written in English, as were 90 percent of all articles in natural science publications by 1996 and 82 percent of articles in humanities publications by 1995. International communities such as international business people may use English as an auxiliary language , with an emphasis on vocabulary suitable for their domain of interest. This has led some scholars to develop
1725-407: A rich inflectional morphology and relatively free word order to a mostly analytic pattern with little inflection and a fairly fixed subject–verb–object word order . Modern English relies more on auxiliary verbs and word order for the expression of complex tenses , aspects and moods , as well as passive constructions , interrogatives , and some negation . The earliest form of English
1840-508: A semantic link between the slang expression and its referent (the thing it refers to). An example of rhyming slang based only on sound is the Cockney "tea leaf" (thief). An example of phono-semantic rhyming slang is the Cockney "sorrowful tale" ((three months in) jail), in which case the person coining the slang term sees a semantic link, sometimes jocular, between the Cockney expression and its referent. The use of rhyming slang has spread beyond
1955-744: A significant minority speaks English. The countries with the most native English speakers are, in descending order, the United States (at least 231 million), the United Kingdom (60 million), Canada (19 million), Australia (at least 17 million), South Africa (4.8 million), Ireland (4.2 million), and New Zealand (3.7 million). In these countries, children of native speakers learn English from their parents, and local people who speak other languages and new immigrants learn English to communicate in their neighbourhoods and workplaces. The inner-circle countries provide
2070-447: A verb ending ( present plural): From the 8th to the 11th centuries, Old English gradually transformed through language contact with Old Norse in some regions. The waves of Norse (Viking) colonisation of northern parts of the British Isles in the 8th and 9th centuries put Old English into intense contact with Old Norse , a North Germanic language. Norse influence was strongest in the north-eastern varieties of Old English spoken in
2185-415: A wig is a 'prunes', from 'syrup of prunes', an obvious parody of the Cockney syrup from syrup of figs – wig . There are numerous other parodies, though it has been pointed out that the result is even more impenetrable than a conventional rhyming slang and so may not be quite so illogical as it seems, given the assumed purpose of rhyming slang as a means of communicating in a manner unintelligible to all but
2300-552: Is Old Frisian , but even some centuries after the Anglo-Saxon migration, Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility with other Germanic varieties. Even in the 9th and 10th centuries, amidst the Danelaw and other Viking invasions, there is historical evidence that Old Norse and Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility, although probably the northern dialects of Old English were more similar to Old Norse than
2415-400: Is also the most widely learned second language in the world, with more second-language speakers than native speakers. English is either the official language or one of the official languages in 59 sovereign states (such as India , Ireland , and Canada ). In some other countries, it is the sole or dominant language for historical reasons without being explicitly defined by law (such as in
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#17328766831862530-459: Is also undergoing change under the influence of American English, fuelled by the strong presence of American English in the media and the prestige associated with the United States as a world power. As of 2016 , 400 million people spoke English as their first language , and 1.1 billion spoke it as a secondary language. English is the largest language by number of speakers . English
2645-516: Is also used and described in a scene of the 1967 film To Sir, with Love starring Sidney Poitier , where the English students tell their foreign teacher that the slang is a drag and something for old people. The closing song of the 1969 crime caper, The Italian Job , ("Getta Bloomin' Move On" a.k.a. "The Self Preservation Society") contains many slang terms. Rhyming slang has been used to lend authenticity to an East End setting. Examples include Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) (wherein
2760-558: Is also widely used in media and literature, and the number of English language books published annually in India is the third largest in the world after the US and UK. However, English is rarely spoken as a first language, numbering only around a couple hundred-thousand people, and less than 5% of the population speak fluent English in India. David Crystal claimed in 2004 that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in
2875-407: Is an official language of countries populated by few descendants of native speakers of English. It has also become by far the most important language of international communication when people who share no native language meet anywhere in the world. The Indian linguist Braj Kachru distinguished countries where English is spoken with a three circles model . In his model, Kachru based his model on
2990-520: Is an open space and road in the London Borough of Southwark , London , England . The roughly triangular open space lies to the south of Peckham and consists of two contiguous areas, Peckham Rye Common to the north and Peckham Rye Park to the south. The road forms the western and eastern perimeter of the open space. Peckham Rye is also a ward of the London Borough of Southwark, forming part of
3105-528: Is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon ( c. 450–1150 ). Old English developed from a set of West Germanic dialects, often grouped as Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic , and originally spoken along the coasts of Frisia , Lower Saxony and southern Jutland by Germanic peoples known to the historical record as the Angles , Saxons , and Jutes . From the 5th century, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain as
3220-527: Is often arbitrarily defined as beginning with the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, but it developed further in the period from 1150 to 1500. With the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the now-Norsified Old English language was subject to another wave of intense contact, this time with Old French , in particular Old Norman French , influencing it as a superstrate. The Norman French spoken by
3335-667: Is primarily spoken by the London lamplighters. In the animated superhero film Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), character Spider-Punk , a Camden native, is heard saying: "I haven’t got a scooby " ("clue"). Slang had a resurgence of popular interest in Britain beginning in the 1970s, resulting from its use in a number of London-based television programmes such as Steptoe and Son (1970–74); and Not On Your Nellie (1974–75), starring Hylda Baker as Nellie Pickersgill, alludes to
3450-424: Is routinely used to communicate with foreigners and often in higher education. In these countries, although English is not used for government business, its widespread use puts them at the boundary between the "outer circle" and "expanding circle". English is unusual among world languages in how many of its users are not native speakers but speakers of English as a second or foreign language. Many users of English in
3565-517: Is spoken by communities on every continent and on islands in all the major oceans. The countries where English is spoken can be grouped into different categories according to how English is used in each country. The "inner circle" countries with many native speakers of English share an international standard of written English and jointly influence speech norms for English around the world. English does not belong to just one country, and it does not belong solely to descendants of English settlers. English
Rhyming slang - Misplaced Pages Continue
3680-777: Is the third person pronoun group beginning with th- ( they, them, their ) which replaced the Anglo-Saxon pronouns with h- ( hie, him, hera ). Other core Norse loanwords include "give", "get", "sky", "skirt", "egg", and "cake", typically displacing a native Anglo-Saxon equivalent. Old Norse in this era retained considerable mutual intelligibility with some dialects of Old English, particularly northern ones. Englischmen þeyz hy hadde fram þe bygynnyng þre manner speche, Souþeron, Northeron, and Myddel speche in þe myddel of þe lond, ... Noþeles by comyxstion and mellyng, furst wiþ Danes, and afterward wiþ Normans, in menye þe contray longage ys asperyed, and som vseþ strange wlaffyng, chyteryng, harryng, and garryng grisbytting. Although, from
3795-502: Is thought to be a rhyming slang form of " taking the piss ", where "Mick" came from "Mickey Bliss". In December 2004 Joe Pasquale , winner of the fourth series of ITV 's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! , became well known for his frequent use of the term "Jacobs", for Jacob's Cream Crackers, a rhyming slang term for knackers i.e. testicles . Rhyming slang has been widely used in popular culture including film, television, music, literature, sport and degree classification. In
3910-566: Is used in many English-speaking countries in the Commonwealth of Nations , with local variations. For example, in Australian slang, the term for an English person is " pommy ", which has been proposed as a rhyme on "pomegranate", pronounced "Pummy Grant", which rhymed with "immigrant". Rhyming slang is continually evolving, and new phrases are introduced all the time; new personalities replace old ones—pop culture introduces new words—as in "I haven't
4025-418: Is used to mean "stairs". Following the pattern of omission, "and pears" is dropped, thus the spoken phrase "I'm going up the apples" means "I'm going up the stairs". The following are further common examples of these phrases: In some examples the meaning is further obscured by adding a second iteration of rhyme and truncation to the original rhymed phrase. For example, the word "Aris" is often used to indicate
4140-479: The Augustinian canon Orrm , which highlights the blending of both Old English and Anglo-Norman elements in English for the first time. In Wycliff'e Bible of the 1380s, the verse Matthew 8:20 was written: Foxis han dennes, and briddis of heuene han nestis . Here the plural suffix -n on the verb have is still retained, but none of the case endings on the nouns are present. By the 12th century Middle English
4255-670: The British undergraduate degree classification system a first class honours degree is known as a " Geoff Hurst " (First) after the English 1966 World Cup footballer. An upper second class degree (a.k.a. a "2:1") is called an " Attila the Hun ", and a lower second class ("2:2") a " Desmond Tutu ", while a third class degree is known as a " Thora Hird " or " Douglas Hurd ". Cary Grant's character teaches rhyming slang to his female companion in Mr. Lucky (1943), describing it as 'Australian rhyming slang'. Rhyming slang
4370-648: The Camberwell and Peckham constituency. Peckham Rye railway station on Rye Lane is a short distance north of the open space in Peckham . To the east is Nunhead , to the south is Honor Oak and to the west is East Dulwich . Barry Road connects the Rye with Dulwich Library while Friern Road is named after an old friary . It was on the Rye in the 1760s that the artist William Blake claimed to have seen visions. According to Blake's biographer Alexander Gilchrist , his first vision
4485-537: The Danelaw area around York, which was the centre of Norse colonisation; today these features are still particularly present in Scots and Northern English . The centre of Norsified English was in the Midlands around Lindsey . After 920 CE, when Lindsey was incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon polity, English spread extensively throughout the region. An element of Norse influence that continues in all English varieties today
4600-532: The European Free Trade Association , Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) set English as their organisation's sole working language even though most members are not countries with a majority of native English speakers. While the European Union (EU) allows member states to designate any of the national languages as an official language of
4715-525: The Germanic language branch, and as of 2021 , Ethnologue estimated that there were over 1.5 billion speakers worldwide. Old English emerged from a group of West Germanic dialects spoken by the Anglo-Saxons . Late Old English borrowed some grammar and core vocabulary from Old Norse , a North Germanic language . Then, Middle English borrowed vocabulary extensively from French dialects , which are
Rhyming slang - Misplaced Pages Continue
4830-731: The Low Saxon and Frisian languages . English is an Indo-European language and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . Old English originated from a Germanic tribal and linguistic continuum along the Frisian North Sea coast, whose languages gradually evolved into the Anglic languages in the British Isles , and into the Frisian languages and Low German /Low Saxon on
4945-620: The Seven Dials area of London. Hotten's Dictionary included the first known "Glossary of the Rhyming Slang", which included later mainstays such as "frog and toad" (the main road) and "apples and pears" (stairs), as well as many more obscure examples, e.g. "Battle of the Nile" (a tile, a common term for a hat), "Duke of York" (take a walk), and "Top of Rome" (home). It remains a matter of speculation exactly how rhyming slang originated, for example, as
5060-641: The United Nations at the end of World War II , English had become pre-eminent and is now the main worldwide language of diplomacy and international relations. It is one of six official languages of the United Nations. Many other worldwide international organisations, including the International Olympic Committee , specify English as a working language or official language of the organisation. Many regional international organisations such as
5175-511: The palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic (see Phonological history of Old English § Palatalization ). The earliest varieties of an English language, collectively known as Old English or "Anglo-Saxon", evolved from a group of North Sea Germanic dialects brought to Britain in the 5th century. Old English dialects were later influenced by Old Norse -speaking Viking invaders and settlers , starting in
5290-529: The "Harry Rags", which is taken from the rhyming slang of their 'official' nickname "the jags". Rangers are known as the "Teddy Bears", which comes from the rhyming slang for "the Gers" (shortened version of Ran-gers). Heart of Midlothian are known as the "Jambos", which comes from "Jam Tarts" which is the rhyming slang for "Hearts" which is the common abbreviation of the club's name. Hibernian are also referred to as "The Cabbage" which comes from Cabbage and Ribs being
5405-558: The "outer circle" countries are countries such as the Philippines , Jamaica , India , Pakistan , Singapore , Malaysia and Nigeria with a much smaller proportion of native speakers of English but much use of English as a second language for education, government, or domestic business, and its routine use for school instruction and official interactions with the government. Those countries have millions of native speakers of dialect continua ranging from an English-based creole to
5520-527: The 1850s. In the 20th century, rhyming slang began to be based on the names of celebrities — Gregory Peck ( neck ; cheque ), Ruby Murray [as Ruby] ( curry ), Alan Whicker [as "Alan Whickers"] ( knickers ), Puff Daddy (caddy), Max Miller ( pillow [pronounced / ˈ p i l ə / ]), Meryl Streep (cheap), Nat King Cole (" dole "), Britney Spears (beers, tears ), Henry Halls ( balls ) — and after pop culture references — Captain Kirk (work), Pop Goes
5635-419: The 1930s. Conversely usages have lapsed, or been usurped ("Hounslow Heath" for teeth, was replaced by "Hampsteads" from the heath of the same name, starting c. 1887 ). In some cases, false etymologies exist. For example, the term "barney" has been used to mean an altercation or fight since the late nineteenth century, although without a clear derivation. In the 2001 feature film Ocean's Eleven ,
5750-596: The 8th and 9th centuries. Middle English began in the late 11th century after the Norman Conquest of England, when a considerable amount of Old French vocabulary was incorporated into English over some three centuries. Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the start of the Great Vowel Shift and the Renaissance trend of borrowing further Latin and Greek words and roots, concurrent with
5865-595: The Angles. English may have a small amount of substrate influence from Common Brittonic, and a number of possible Brittonicisms in English have been proposed, but whether most of these supposed Brittonicisms are actually a direct result of Brittonic substrate influence is disputed. Old English was divided into four dialects: the Anglian dialects ( Mercian and Northumbrian ) and the Saxon dialects ( Kentish and West Saxon ). Through
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#17328766831865980-463: The British Empire in the 1950s and 1960s, former colonies often did not reject English but rather continued to use it as independent countries setting their own language policies. For example, the view of the English language among many Indians has gone from associating it with colonialism to associating it with economic progress, and English continues to be an official language of India. English
6095-537: The Early Modern period includes the works of William Shakespeare and the translation of the Bible commissioned by King James I . Even after the vowel shift the language still sounded different from Modern English: for example, the consonant clusters /kn ɡn sw/ in knight , gnat , and sword were still pronounced. Many of the grammatical features that a modern reader of Shakespeare might find quaint or archaic represent
6210-578: The English Language , which introduced standard spellings of words and usage norms. In 1828, Noah Webster published the American Dictionary of the English language to try to establish a norm for speaking and writing American English that was independent of the British standard. Within Britain, non-standard or lower class dialect features were increasingly stigmatised, leading to the quick spread of
6325-543: The English-speaking inner circle countries outside Britain helped level dialect distinctions and produce koineised forms of English in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. The majority of immigrants to the United States without British ancestry rapidly adopted English after arrival. Now the majority of the United States population are monolingual English speakers. English has ceased to be an "English language" in
6440-550: The Roman economy and administration collapsed . By the 7th century, this Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in Britain , replacing the languages of Roman Britain (43–409): Common Brittonic , a Celtic language , and British Latin , brought to Britain by the Roman occupation. At this time, these dialects generally resisted influence from the then-local Brittonic and Latin languages. England and English (originally Ænglaland and Ænglisc ) are both named after
6555-491: The UK in 2010. The track was released on the 2012 album JJ Doom album Keys to the Kuffs . Another contributor was Lonnie Donegan who had a song called "My Old Man's a Dustman". In it he says his father has trouble putting on his boots "He's got such a job to pull them up that he calls them daisy roots". In modern literature, Cockney rhyming slang is used frequently in the novels and short stories of Kim Newman , for instance in
6670-490: The Union, in practice English is the main working language of EU organisations. Although in most countries English is not an official language, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language . In the countries of the EU, English is the most widely spoken foreign language in nineteen of the twenty-five member states where it is not an official language (that is, the countries other than Ireland and Malta ). In
6785-507: The United States and United Kingdom ). It is a co-official language of the United Nations , the European Union , and many other international and regional organisations. It has also become the de facto lingua franca of diplomacy, science , technology, international trade, logistics, tourism, aviation, entertainment, and the Internet . English accounts for at least 70% of total speakers of
6900-912: The Weasel ( diesel ), Mona Lisa ( pizza ), Mickey Mouse ( Scouse ), Wallace and Gromit (vomit), Brady Bunch (lunch), Bugs Bunny (money), Scooby-Doo (clue), Winnie the Pooh (shoe), and Schindler's List ( pissed ). Some words have numerous definitions, such as dead ( Father Ted , "gone to bed", brown bread ), door ( Roger Moore , Andrea Corr , George Bernard Shaw , Rory O'Moore ), cocaine ( Kurt Cobain ; [as "Charlie"] Bob Marley , Boutros Boutros-Ghali , Gianluca Vialli , oats and barley ; [as "line"] Patsy Cline ; [as "powder"] Niki Lauda ), flares (" Lionel Blairs ", " Tony Blairs ", " Rupert Bears ", " Dan Dares "), etc. Many examples have passed into common usage. Some substitutions have become relatively widespread in England in their contracted form. "To have
7015-407: The base from which English spreads to other countries in the world. Estimates of the numbers of second language and foreign-language English speakers vary greatly from 470 million to more than 1 billion, depending on how proficiency is defined. Linguist David Crystal estimates that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1. In Kachru's three-circles model,
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#17328766831867130-449: The basis for the required controlled natural languages Seaspeak and Airspeak, used as international languages of seafaring and aviation. English used to have parity with French and German in scientific research, but now it dominates that field. It achieved parity with French as a language of diplomacy at the Treaty of Versailles negotiations in 1919. By the time of the foundation of
7245-400: The beginning, Englishmen had three manners of speaking, southern, northern and midlands speech in the middle of the country, ... Nevertheless, through intermingling and mixing, first with Danes and then with Normans, amongst many the country language has arisen, and some use strange stammering, chattering, snarling, and grating gnashing. John Trevisa , c. 1385 Middle English
7360-482: The buttocks. This is the result of a double rhyme, starting with the original rough synonym "arse", which is rhymed with "bottle and glass", leading to "bottle". "Bottle" was then rhymed with " Aristotle " and truncated to "Aris". "Aris" was then rhymed with " plaster of Paris " and truncated to "plaster". Ghil'ad Zuckermann , a linguist and revivalist , has proposed a distinction between rhyming slang based on sound only, and phono-semantic rhyming slang, which includes
7475-462: The character of Harmony ( Wayne Laryea ) often incorporating it in his dialogue. In popular music, Spike Jones and his City Slickers recorded "So 'Elp Me", based on rhyming slang, in 1950. The 1967 Kinks song "Harry Rag" was based on the usage of the name Harry Wragg as rhyming slang for "fag" (i.e. a cigarette ). The idiom made a brief appearance in the UK-based DJ reggae music of the 1980s in
7590-638: The consensus of educated English speakers around the world, without any oversight by any government or international organisation. American listeners readily understand most British broadcasting, and British listeners readily understand most American broadcasting. Most English speakers around the world can understand radio programmes, television programmes, and films from many parts of the English-speaking world. Both standard and non-standard varieties of English can include both formal or informal styles, distinguished by word choice and syntax and use both technical and non-technical registers. The settlement history of
7705-513: The context "what you said is rubbish") originates from " cobbler's awls ", meaning "balls" (as in testicles); and "hampton" (usually "'ampton") meaning "prick" (as in penis) originates from " Hampton Wick " (a place in London) – the second part "wick" also entered common usage as "he gets on my wick" (he is an annoying person). Lesser taboo terms include " pony and trap " for "crap" (as in defecate, but often used to denote nonsense or low quality); to blow
7820-682: The continent. The Frisian languages, which together with the Anglic languages form the Anglo-Frisian languages , are the closest living relatives of English. Low German/Low Saxon is also closely related, and sometimes English, the Frisian languages, and Low German are grouped together as the North Sea Germanic languages, though this grouping remains debated. Old English evolved into Middle English , which in turn evolved into Modern English. Particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into
7935-476: The development of English was influenced by a long series of invasions of the British Isles by other peoples and languages, particularly Old Norse and French dialects . These left a profound mark of their own on the language, so that English shows some similarities in vocabulary and grammar with many languages outside its linguistic clades —but it is not mutually intelligible with any of those languages either. Some scholars have argued that English can be considered
8050-467: The distinct characteristics of Early Modern English. In the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, written in Early Modern English, Matthew 8:20 says, "The Foxes haue holes and the birds of the ayre haue nests." This exemplifies the loss of case and its effects on sentence structure (replacement with subject–verb–object word order, and the use of of instead of the non-possessive genitive), and
8165-401: The early period of Old English were written using a runic script . By the 6th century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms . It included the runic letters wynn ⟨ ƿ ⟩ and thorn ⟨ þ ⟩ , and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ ð ⟩ , and ash ⟨ æ ⟩ . Old English is essentially
8280-539: The educational reforms of King Alfred in the 9th century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex , the West Saxon dialect became the standard written variety . The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Cædmon's Hymn , is written in Northumbrian. Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from
8395-634: The elite in England eventually developed into the Anglo-Norman language . Because Norman was spoken primarily by the elites and nobles, while the lower classes continued speaking English, the main influence of Norman was the introduction of a wide range of loanwords related to politics, legislation and prestigious social domains. Middle English also greatly simplified the inflectional system, probably in order to reconcile Old Norse and Old English, which were inflectionally different but morphologically similar. The distinction between nominative and accusative cases
8510-408: The expanding circle use it to communicate with other people from the expanding circle, so that interaction with native speakers of English plays no part in their decision to use the language. Non-native varieties of English are widely used for international communication, and speakers of one such variety often encounter features of other varieties. Very often today a conversation in English anywhere in
8625-514: The explanation for the term is that it derives from Barney Rubble , the name of a cartoon character from the Flintstones television program many decades later in origin. Rhyming slang is used mainly in London in England but can to some degree be understood across the country. Some constructions, however, rely on particular regional accents for the rhymes to work. For instance, the term " Charing Cross " (a place in London), used to mean "horse" since
8740-710: The growing economic and cultural influence of the United States and its status as a superpower following the Second World War has, along with worldwide broadcasting in English by the BBC and other broadcasters, caused the language to spread across the planet much faster. In the 21st century, English is more widely spoken and written than any language has ever been. As Modern English developed, explicit norms for standard usage were published, and spread through official media such as public education and state-sponsored publications. In 1755, Samuel Johnson published his A Dictionary of
8855-479: The history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English was characterised by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardisation. The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English. It was a chain shift , meaning that each shift triggered a subsequent shift in the vowel system. Mid and open vowels were raised , and close vowels were broken into diphthongs . For example,
8970-407: The history of how English spread in different countries, how users acquire English, and the range of uses English has in each country. The three circles change membership over time. Countries with large communities of native speakers of English (the inner circle) include Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, where the majority speaks English, and South Africa, where
9085-449: The hit "Cockney Translation" by Smiley Culture of South London ; this was followed a couple of years later by Domenick and Peter Metro's "Cockney and Yardie". London-based artists such as Audio Bullys and Chas & Dave (and others from elsewhere in the UK, such as The Streets , who are from Birmingham) frequently use rhyming slang in their songs. British-born M.C. MF Doom released an ode entitled "Rhymin' Slang", after settling in
9200-561: The initiated. In the book Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves , a beer is a "broken square" as Welch Fusiliers officers walk into a pub and order broken squares when they see men from the Black Watch. The Black Watch had a minor blemish on its record of otherwise unbroken squares. Fistfights ensued. In Dashiell Hammett 's The Dain Curse , the protagonist exhibits familiarity with Cockney rhyming slang, referring to gambling at dice with
9315-403: The inner-circle countries, and they may show grammatical and phonological differences from inner-circle varieties as well. The standard English of the inner-circle countries is often taken as a norm for use of English in the outer-circle countries. In the three-circles model, countries such as Poland, China, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, Egypt, and other countries where English is taught as
9430-524: The introduction of loanwords from French ( ayre ) and word replacements ( bird originally meaning "nestling" had replaced OE fugol ). By the late 18th century, the British Empire had spread English through its colonies and geopolitical dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all contributed to English becoming the first truly global language. English also facilitated worldwide international communication. English
9545-467: The introduction of the printing press to London. This era notably culminated in the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare . The printing press greatly standardised English spelling, which has remained largely unchanged since then, despite a wide variety of later sound shifts in English dialects. Modern English has spread around the world since the 17th century as a consequence of
9660-429: The island of Great Britain . The namesake of the language is the Angles , one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to Britain . It is the most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the global influences of the former British Empire (succeeded by the Commonwealth of Nations ) and the United States . English is the third-most spoken native language , after Standard Chinese and Spanish ; it
9775-431: The languages have descended from a single common ancestor called Proto-Germanic . Some shared features of Germanic languages include the division of verbs into strong and weak classes, the use of modal verbs , and the sound changes affecting Proto-Indo-European consonants, known as Grimm's and Verner's laws . English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as
9890-424: The mid-19th century in the East End of London, with several sources suggesting some time in the 1840s. The Flash Dictionary of unknown authorship, published in 1921 by Smeeton ( 48mo ), contains a few rhymes. John Camden Hotten 's 1859 Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words likewise states that it originated in the 1840s ("about twelve or fifteen years ago"), but with "chaunters" and "patterers" in
10005-587: The mid-nineteenth century, does not work for a speaker without the lot–cloth split , common in London at that time but not nowadays. A similar example is "Joanna" meaning "piano", which is based on the pronunciation of "piano" as "pianna" / p i ˈ æ n ə / . Unique formations also exist in other parts of the United Kingdom, such as in the East Midlands , where the local accent has formed "Derby Road", which rhymes with "cold". Outside England, rhyming slang
10120-656: The phrase "not on your Nellie Duff", rhyming slang for "not on your puff" i.e. not on your life. Similarly, The Sweeney (1975–78) alludes to the phrase "Sweeney Todd" for " Flying Squad ", a rapid response unit of London's Metropolitan Police. In The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976–79), a comic twist was added to rhyming slang by way of spurious and fabricated examples which a young man had laboriously attempted to explain to his father (e.g. 'dustbins' meaning 'children', as in 'dustbin lids'='kids'; 'Teds' being 'Ted Heath' and thus 'teeth'; and even 'Chitty Chitty' being 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang', and thus 'rhyming slang'...). It
10235-465: The phrase "rats and mice." Cockney rhyming slang is one of the main influences for the dialect spoken in A Clockwork Orange (1962). The author of the novel, Anthony Burgess , also believed the phrase "as queer as a clockwork orange" was Cockney slang having heard it in a London pub in 1945, and subsequently named it in the title of his book. In Scottish football, a number of clubs have nicknames taken from rhyming slang. Partick Thistle are known as
10350-426: The prestige varieties among the middle classes. In modern English, the loss of grammatical case is almost complete (it is now only found in pronouns, such as he and him , she and her , who and whom ), and SVO word order is mostly fixed. Some changes, such as the use of do-support , have become universalised. (Earlier English did not use the word "do" as a general auxiliary as Modern English does; at first it
10465-423: The purely dialectal and some examples are to be found in the mainstream British English lexicon, although many users may be unaware of the origin of those words. Most of the words changed by this process are nouns, but a few are adjectival, e.g., "bales" of cotton (rotten), or the adjectival phrase "on one's tod" for "on one's own", after Tod Sloan , a famous jockey. Rhyming slang is believed to have originated in
10580-553: The reign of Henry V . Around 1430, the Court of Chancery in Westminster began using English in its official documents , and a new standard form of Middle English, known as Chancery Standard , developed from the dialects of London and the East Midlands . In 1476, William Caxton introduced the printing press to England and began publishing the first printed books in London, expanding the influence of this form of English. Literature from
10695-591: The rhyming slang for Hibs. The phrase Hampden Roar (originally describing the loud crowd noise emanating from the national stadium ) is employed as "What's the Hampden?", ("What's the score?", idiom for "What's happening / what's going on?"). In rugby league , "meat pie" is used for try . English language English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , whose speakers, called Anglophones , originated in early medieval England on
10810-464: The sense of belonging only to people who are ethnically English . Use of English is growing country-by-country internally and for international communication. Most people learn English for practical rather than ideological reasons. Many speakers of English in Africa have become part of an "Afro-Saxon" language community that unites Africans from different countries. As decolonisation proceeded throughout
10925-579: The short story collections "The Man from the Diogenes Club" (2006) and "Secret Files of the Diogenes Club" (2007), where it is explained at the end of each book. It is also parodied in Going Postal by Terry Pratchett , which features a geriatric Junior Postman by the name of Tolliver Groat, a speaker of 'Dimwell Arrhythmic Rhyming Slang', the only rhyming slang on the Disc which does not actually rhyme . Thus,
11040-602: The slang is translated via subtitles in one scene); The Limey (1999); Sexy Beast (2000); Snatch (2000); Ocean's Eleven (2001); and Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002); It's All Gone Pete Tong (2004), after BBC radio disc jockey Pete Tong whose name is used in this context as rhyming slang for "wrong"; Green Street Hooligans (2005). In Margin Call (2011), Will Emerson, played by London-born actor Paul Bettany , asks
11155-478: The source of approximately 28% of Modern English words , and from Latin , which is the source of an additional 28% . As such, though most of its total vocabulary comes from Romance languages , Modern English's grammar, phonology, and most commonly used words in everyday use keep it genealogically classified under the Germanic branch. It exists on a dialect continuum with Scots and is then most closely related to
11270-474: The southern dialects. Theoretically, as late as the 900s AD, a commoner from certain (northern) parts of England could hold a conversation with a commoner from certain parts of Scandinavia. Research continues into the details of the myriad tribes in peoples in England and Scandinavia and the mutual contacts between them. The translation of Matthew 8:20 from 1000 shows examples of case endings ( nominative plural, accusative plural, genitive singular) and
11385-455: The study of English as an auxiliary language. The trademarked Globish uses a relatively small subset of English vocabulary (about 1500 words, designed to represent the highest use in international business English) in combination with the standard English grammar. Other examples include Simple English . The increased use of the English language globally has had an effect on other languages, leading to some English words being assimilated into
11500-426: The vocabularies of other languages. This influence of English has led to concerns about language death , and to claims of linguistic imperialism , and has provoked resistance to the spread of English; however the number of speakers continues to increase because many people around the world think that English provides them with opportunities for better employment and improved lives. Peckham Rye Peckham Rye
11615-473: The word bite was originally pronounced as the word beet is today, and the second vowel in the word about was pronounced as the word boot is today. The Great Vowel Shift explains many irregularities in spelling since English retains many spellings from Middle English, and it also explains why English vowel letters have very different pronunciations from the same letters in other languages. English began to rise in prestige, relative to Norman French, during
11730-785: The world may include no native speakers of English at all, even while including speakers from several different countries. This is particularly true of the shared vocabulary of mathematics and the sciences. English is a pluricentric language , which means that no one national authority sets the standard for use of the language. Spoken English, including English used in broadcasting, generally follows national pronunciation standards that are established by custom rather than by regulation. International broadcasters are usually identifiable as coming from one country rather than another through their accents , but newsreader scripts are also composed largely in international standard written English . The norms of standard written English are maintained purely by
11845-539: The world, but the number of English speakers in India is uncertain, with most scholars concluding that the United States still has more speakers of English than India. Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca , is also regarded as the first world language . English is the world's most widely used language in newspaper publishing, book publishing, international telecommunications, scientific publishing, international trade, mass entertainment, and diplomacy. English is, by international treaty,
11960-438: The worldwide influence of the British Empire and the United States. Through all types of printed and electronic media in these countries, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and professional contexts such as science, navigation , and law. Its modern grammar is the result of a gradual change from a dependent-marking pattern typical of Indo-European with
12075-405: Was adopted in parts of North America, parts of Africa, Oceania, and many other regions. When they obtained political independence, some of the newly independent states that had multiple indigenous languages opted to continue using English as the official language to avoid the political and other difficulties inherent in promoting any one indigenous language above the others. In the 20th century
12190-684: Was also featured in an episode of The Good Life in the first season (1975) where Tom and Barbara purchase a wood-burning range from a junk trader called Sam, who litters his language with phony rhyming slang in hopes of convincing suburban residents that he is an authentic traditional Cockney trader. He comes up with a fake story as to the origin of Cockney rhyming slang and is caught out rather quickly. In The Jeffersons season 2 (1976) episode "The Breakup: Part 2", Mr. Bentley explains Cockney rhyming slang to George Jefferson , in that "whistle and flute" means "suit", "apples and pears" means "stairs", "plates of meat" means "feet". The use of rhyming slang
12305-537: Was also prominent in Mind Your Language (1977–79), Citizen Smith (1977–80), Minder (1979–94), Only Fools and Horses (1981–91), and EastEnders (1985–). Minder could be quite uncompromising in its use of obscure forms without any clarification. Thus the non-Cockney viewer was obliged to deduce that, say, "iron" was "male homosexual" ('iron'='iron hoof'='poof'). One episode in Series 5 of Steptoe and Son
12420-479: Was entitled "Any Old Iron", for the same reason, when Albert thinks that Harold is 'on the turn'. Variations of rhyming slang were also used in sitcom Birds of a Feather , by main characters Sharon and Tracey, often to the confusion of character, Dorian Green, who was unfamiliar with the terms. One early US show to regularly feature rhyming slang was the Saturday morning children's show The Bugaloos (1970–72), with
12535-511: Was fully developed, integrating both Norse and French features; it continued to be spoken until the transition to early Modern English around 1500. Middle English literature includes Geoffrey Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales , and Thomas Malory 's Le Morte d'Arthur . In the Middle English period, the use of regional dialects in writing proliferated, and dialect traits were even used for effect by authors such as Chaucer. The next period in
12650-432: Was invented by Irish immigrants to London "so the actual English wouldn't understand what they were talking about." Many examples of rhyming slang are based on locations in London, such as " Peckham Rye ", meaning " tie ", which dates from the late nineteenth century; " Hampstead Heath ", meaning "teeth" (usually as "Hampsteads"), which was first recorded in 1887; and "barnet" ( Barnet Fair ), meaning "hair", which dates from
12765-500: Was lost except in personal pronouns, the instrumental case was dropped, and the use of the genitive case was limited to indicating possession . The inflectional system regularised many irregular inflectional forms, and gradually simplified the system of agreement, making word order less flexible. The transition from Old to Middle English can be placed during the writing of the Ormulum . The oldest Middle English texts that were written by
12880-586: Was one of "a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars." The Park includes the 49 acres of land south of the Common that surrounded Homestall Farm, which was purchased by the Vestry and London County Council in 1868, for £51,000. A few other small parcels of land were later incorporated into the Park when the leases of Homestall Farm and other properties expired. The land for Peckham Rye Park
12995-533: Was only used in question constructions, and even then was not obligatory. Now, do-support with the verb have is becoming increasingly standardised.) The use of progressive forms in -ing , appears to be spreading to new constructions, and forms such as had been being built are becoming more common. Regularisation of irregular forms also slowly continues (e.g. dreamed instead of dreamt ), and analytical alternatives to inflectional forms are becoming more common (e.g. more polite instead of politer ). British English
13110-558: Was purchased by the London County Council for £51,000 (equivalent to £7,300,000 in 2023) and declared open on 14 May 1894. At that time the park was 54 acres (220,000 m ). Homestall Farm was 13 acres. One of the first features of the new park, an ornamental 'Old English Garden' was created. It was later renamed the 'Sexby Garden' after Lt-Col JJ Sexby the London County Council's first Chief Officer of Parks. It
13225-518: Was re-developed in 1936 and the paths re-laid with yorkstone paving. During World War II, part of the Common became a Prisoner of War camp for Italian prisoners of war. The River Peck was largely enclosed in 1823. Today, parts of this stream can still be seen on the west side of Peckham Rye Park. The Park includes a Japanese garden and hosts a weekly Parkrun event. Peckham Rye is also Cockney rhyming slang for tie ( necktie ). Muriel Spark 's 1960 novel The Ballad of Peckham Rye tells
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