Costermonger a secret language, a code which only other costermongers understood. In her book, "Shadows of the Workhouse", Jennifer Worth observed that "Costers... spoke to each other almost entirely in back slang; incomprensible to an outsider." Many costermongers also used "rhyming slang"; where any word can be substituted with another word that rhymes with it. Examples of rhyming slang include: "tin lids" or "dustpan lids" for "kids"; "jimmy grant" for "emigrant"; "apple and pears" for "stairs"; "rubbidy dub" for "pub" and "trouble and strife" for "wife". The selection of rhyming words often suggested a symbolic association. For example, a "sorrowful tale"
Fruit (slang) presently defined as male testicles from the Cockney rhyming slang "cobbler's awls", meaning "balls" and "blow" was the blossoming of a fruit tree and is widely used as the Polari definition for oral sex on a man causing him to "blow"(ejaculate). "Fruitcakes", which are cakes containing both fruit and nuts, have been in existence since the Middle Ages, but it is unclear when the term started being used disparagingly, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States, as a slur for a 'crazy person' (e.g. "he's a complete fruitcake") although "Cassell's Dictionary of Slang" traces uses of "fruitcake" meaning