Rhyming slang 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 vulgar term for a hat), "Duke of York" (take a walk), and "Top of Rom" (home). It remains a matter of speculation whether rhyming slang was a linguistic accident, a game, or 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 in order to facilitate collusion, without customers knowing what they were saying,
Wot Cher! Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road horse rides in London. A "cove" is a low-class fellow. A "Dutch" is a wife, being cockney rhyming slang for "Duchess of Fife" which rhymes with "wife". She says "I 'ates a Bus because it's low!", in order to tease her lodger, meaning she now considers the bus to be low-class and beneath her. Last week down our alley came a toff<br> Nice old geezer with a nasty cough.<br> Sees my missus, takes his topper off<br> In a very gentlemanly way!<br> "Ma'am" says he, "I 'ave some news to tell,<br> Your rich uncle Tom of Camberwell,<br> Popp'd off recent, which