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"
Discworld characters reveals that in Dimwell slang, ""syrup of prunes"" means wig. (In Cockney rhyming slang, the expected derivation would be ""syrup of figs".") Another example given in the text is ""cup-and-plate""—no definition is given, but ""He's a bit cup-and-plate in the head"" implies it means ""not quite right"." Tolliver also had a very small part in "[[Wintersmith]]". The wintersmith approaches him to take some sulfur, so that he would become a man. This incident was reported in The Ankh Morpork Times, and a widow approached him, swayed by 'a man who knows his hygiene.' It is now believed that they are