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"
Cockney Wanker Cockney Wanker Cockney Wanker is a character created by Graham Dury and Simon Thorpe in "Viz" based on a stereotyped male Cockney. Wanker speaks in rhyming slang (often slang invented by the writers) and spends his days drinking and selling stolen or unworkable goods to passers-by from an East End market stall. Another of Wanker's specialities is trading used cars. Playing upon the stereotype of the indigenous population of London being fantasists, Wanker often buys a car, sells it back to the same person, for the same amount of money, then declares the transaction to have been "A nice little