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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by common consent, and mutual prior agreement.
theirs no set canon for the slang, its explicitly intended to be obscuring (the whole point was to allow thieves to discuss the details of a crime with each other, in the open, in a manner that was deniable if a witness reported them to the police).
basically, you just agree with the other person your speaking to that your using the phrase “challenger tank”. some other group might settle on “westminster Bank” instead for the same rhyme, and a third might use “Tom Hanks”.
as various phrases are used, some become more popular and spread to become the “standard” ones used for that rhyme.
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