"Couldn't Get On With His Trouble And Strife"

By J. L. Speranza

"-- goes Grice in "Meaning", WoW:214

-- i.e. he found his wife _dispensable_ -- plus the playful attitude of rhyming behind it:


John Ayto, Oxford Dictionary of Rhyming Slang, pp309. ISBN 0-19-280122-8.
Oxford University Press. Reviewed by M. Quinion.

"When most people speak about rhyming slang, you can almost hear the
unarticulated 'Cockney', so much is this odd linguistic phenomenon
associated with the East End of London. However, as John Ayto makes
clear in his introduction to this new work, rhyming slang has never
been limited to that area."

"It has been found all over the British Isles, in Australia and New
Zealand (to which it was exported by emigrants from Britain at the
end of the nineteenth century) and even in the USA, where it had a
brief flowering at the beginning of the twentieth century (known as
Australian slang, since it seems to have reached there by going the
long way round). But it's still commonly associated with Cockney
sparrows, pearly kings and queens, and all the nostalgic falsities
that have grown up round that hard-working, hard-living community,
who in popular consciousness seem only to speak of "apples and
pears", never stairs, of "pork pies" instead of lies, of a "boat
race" rather than a face, and of "mince pies" when they mean eyes."

"Rhyming slang seems to have started in London around the 1850s. A
slang dictionary of 1859 refers to "The cant, which has nothing to
do with that spoken by the costermongers, is known in Seven Dials
[a noted sink of iniquity] and elsewhere as the Rhyming Slang, or
the substitution of words and sentences which rhyme with other
words intended to be kept secret". That seems to have been only
part of the key to its introduction and success: it was not only a
secret code, but also a declaration of group identity and a way of
making fun by word play."

"It's clear it was mostly a male-dominated club (Mr Ayto points out that it
cannot be a coincidence that there are twenty rhyming terms for wife, the
best known being "trouble
and strife", but only one for husband, though he admits that it is very
hard finding a rhyme for "husband" - the only example known actually rhymes
"old man" to "pot 'n' pan")."

"In the 1930s, it was predicted that rhyming slang in London would
die out, but it has survived, and is even being reinvigorated by
new terms, mostly taken from the names of popular personages - so
"Brad Pitt" is an excretory function, a "Britney Spears" (or just a
"Britney") is a beer, and a "Michael Caine" is a pain."

"The word "dictionary" in the title may mislead. The work, as is now
fashionable, is not arranged alphabetically, but by themes arranged
in chapters, covering such fields as "People and the Human
Condition", "Sex", "Crime and Punishment", "Work and its Lack",
"Alcohol and other Drugs", and so on. Truly, all human life is
here. An index stops you getting lost. However, the index is only
one way - from rhyming slang to plain English. If you want to go
the other way, you have to find the relevant thematic section and
search through the entries. A reverse index would have been a boon."

"This must surely become a standard work on the subject. It's up to
date and includes recent inventions worldwide. Its introduction
gives an excellent grounding in the origins, formats, and usages of
the style. Well worth getting if you have any interest in one way
in which people invigorate their speech with playful ingenuity."