4 MARCH 1960, Page 22

Facks

slang and the language of the underworld, Fings re certainly not what they used to be. A hundred years ago, glossaries of Seven Dials argot—the

'flash' language of early Victorian criminal Lon- don—were published surreptitiously and anony- mously. Nowadays expensive and scholarly works on the subject are issued by dignified publishers, volumes as big and .as magnificently rich in knowledge as the Dictionary of Slang or the Dictionary of the Underworld of Mr. Eric Partridge. This fits with a new and agreeable cult of etymological knowledge; and so far as rhyming slang is concerned, we would be ashamed not to know that 'bees and honey' means 'money,' or that 'plates' means 'feet.' When Mr. Frank Nor- man in his autobiography says that his girl is `rabbiting away,' we only allow' ourselves a second to remember that rabbit-and-pork is talk. When Mr. Peter Sellers in Two Way Stretch speaks of a 'berk,' we hope we know what that means too.

I think amateur and even' professional philolo- gists feel there is something too recent, too artificial, and too chancily invented about rhy'm- ing slang to allow it to rank as more than an amusing quirk in language • development. Mr. Julian Franklyn's good and much-needed book on the subject should correct this impression. Rhyming slang has existed for more than a century. Phrases like 'apple and pears' (for stairs) are even older. It spreads beyond London, is used in Ireland, and has reached, via Australia, the Pacific coast of America. Long before this habit grew, Cockneys had shown a strong and lively taste for puns and rhyming. Cockney humour is famous throughout the world : and the rhyming phrase is not chosen at random : most of the examples which live have a special aptness and quotability about them.

Apt, for instance, in King Death, for breath, or Kiss the Cross—Pacific coast for boss. Some of the name rhymes go with the most satisfactory swing. Under the Bs, I like Barnaby Rudge for Judge, Billy Bunter for Shunter, or Binnie Hale for Tale. Or Sexton Blake for Cake or Old King Cole for Dole, or Sweeney Todd for Flying Squad. There are many stage names, or Phrases from the stage (some of which owe their record- ing to Mr. Lupino Lane). Stage are Owen Nares for chairs, King Lear for queer, and perhaps Vera Lynn for gin. Oliver Cromwell for tumble and red-hot cinder for window help us, as rhymes so often do, with the history of pronun- ciation. Many of us use rhyming slang without knowing it. I am sure my dignified uncle, who was always wanting to 'get down to brass tacks,' didn't know he was implying the Cockney word lacks.' And does everybody know that 'Oscar' is Oscar-Asche cash, or 'Scapa,' Scapa Flow go?

Mr. Franklyn has a theory of the origins of this slang. It is too witty for Seven Dials and low life, he believes. It grew from the Cockney navvies who tried to out-talk and outwit their voluble Irish mates during the mid-nineteenth- century building of the railways. All very prob- lematic---bui there is no doubt whatever about the interest, the wit and the scholarship of Mr. Franklyn's work in this dictionary.

STEPHEN POTTER