[78-L] OT. Cockney Rhyming Slang.

[Julian Vein]

Spats wrote:
> I've never ever heard 'ginger beer' used as rhyming slang for 'queer' 
> OR engineer.
> So, it must be someone's personal invention.
> It's certainly not commonly used in London with that meaning.
> 
> We used to make up lots as a private language...
> 
> There are also modern additions to the commonly used vocabulary...
> For instance...
> 
> 'Syrup of figs' (shortened to 'syrup') is now commonly used to refer 
> to a 'wig'.
> 
> I friend of mine, now sadly deceased, used to invent them all the time...
> 
> One of his became widely used...
> Ruby Murray', an Irish 1950s pop-singer....
> 
> 'Ruby' is now widely used to refer to curry.
> 
> My favourite was his saying...
> 
> I've ricked my Gregory?
> 
> Ricked is a word used to mean putting something out of joint...but Gregory!?
> 
> It turned to mean NECK! ;-)
> 
> Earl.
================
"Ruby" has been around awhile. I first heard "Ginger" about 30 years 
ago, when someone at work addressed a homosexual (I'm not using 
"gay"--I'm gay, but not homosexual--an example of a word being stolen) 
as such. He replied: "My name is not Ginger!" He obviously hadn't heard 
it. His name was Johnson, with the initials "S. H." Because of the way 
strutted about I thought of him as Snake Hips Johnson! Because of the 
colour of his skin he was also known as "The African Queen"! We also had 
an Egyptian homosexual there whom I dubbed "The Egyptian Mummy".

Hadn't come across "syrup", but there hasn't been much opportunity to 
use it if I had.

So as not to be thought one-sided in this, a friend of that persuasion 
who was out shopping with my partner and daughter jokingly dabbed some 
perfume on his hand and asked me if I thought "he smelt like a poof". He 
has also referred to others as "camp as arseholes"! And my remarks about 
"fairies at the bottom of the garden" don't cause him or his partner 
offense.

Did you know that Michael Winner got out of military service by claiming 
he was homosexual?

      Julian Vein