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
Rhyming slang 1972, English rhyming slang dates from around 1840 and arose in the East End of London; 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 the Seven Dials area of London. The reference is to travelling salesmen of certain kinds, chaunters selling sheet music and patterers offered cheap, tawdry goods at fairs and markets up and down the country. Hotten's "Dictionary" included the first known "Glossary of the Rhyming Slang", which included later mainstays such as "frog