The “Canon” of Cockney Rhyming Slang

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First off, I understand HOW rhyming slang works, by replacing a word with one from a term that rhymes (i.e. “He’s up the apples”, with ‘apples’ coming from the phrase ‘apples and pears’, where ‘pears’ rhymes with ‘stairs’) but my question is, is there an established “canon” or can you just make up new ones? If so, how does that work?

For instance, if I said, “See you later, mate, I’m going for a Challenger,” how reasonably sure could I be that the listener could follow my logic of ‘Challenger’ from ‘Challenger tank’ rhyming with ‘wank’?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

There is an episode of the podcast Stuff You Should Know about this very subject! Check it out.

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