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,
Rhyming slang One early US show to regularly feature rhyming slang was the Saturday morning children's show "The Bugaloos" (1970–72), with the character of Harmony (Wayne Laryea) often incorporating it in his dialogue. In Britain, rhyming slang had a resurgence of popular interest beginning in the 1970s, resulting from its use in a number of London-based television programmes such as "Steptoe and Son" (1970–74); and "Not On Your Nellie" (1974–75), starring Hylda Baker as Nellie Pickersgill, alludes to the phrase "not on your Nellie Duff", rhyming slang for "not on your puff" i.e. not on your life. Similarly, "The Sweeney" (1975–78) alludes