Rhyming slang 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 that is followed is made clear with the following example. The rhyming phrase "apples and pears" evolved 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: Thus a construction of the following type could conceivably arise: "It nearly knocked
Apples and oranges niú bù xiāng jí), literally meaning "horses and cattles won't mate with each other", and later used to describe things that are totally unrelated and incomparable. A number of more exaggerated comparisons are sometimes made, in cases in which the speaker believes the two objects being compared are radically different. For example, "oranges with orangutans", "apples with dishwashers", and so on. In English, different fruits, such as pears, plums, or lemons are sometimes substituted for oranges in this context. Sometimes the two words sound similar, for example, Romanian "merele cu perele" (apples and pears) and the Hungarian "szezont a fazonnal"