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"
Rhyming slang me off me plates – the septic was wearing a syrup! I couldn't believe me mincers, so I ran up the apples, got straight on the dog to me trouble and we had a Turkish." In some examples the meaning is further obscured by adding a second iteration of rhyme and truncation to the original rhymed phrase. For example, the word "Aris" is often used to indicate the buttocks. This is the result of a double rhyme, starting with the original rough synonym "arse", which is rhymed with "bottle and glass", leading to "bottle". "Bottle" was then rhymed with "Aristotle"