[78-L] OT. Cockney Rhyming Slang.

[Spats]

Hi!

Yes, it must be at least 30 years since my old friend and manager 
made up 'Ruby'. It spread around all the touring bands like wildfire, 
because, of-course, they often ate curry at Indian restaurants while 
on the road. From there, it conquered the world! ;-)

However, as I say, I've never ever heard 'Ginger' used to mean a homosexual.

Men wearing bad wigs used to afford my old friend great hilarity, for 
some reason, so I made up my own rhyming slang, so that, when I 
wanted to draw attention to a particularly bad example, I could do so 
aloud without alerting anyone but him.

I came up with 'Coronation Mug', for 'rug'.
Thus, I was able to say to him...

'John, are you old enough to remember the coronation?'
and he'd immediately look around to see what I had seen...

The old original cockney rhyming slang words can be heard on such old 
Music Hall songs as 'Any Old Iron' of-course.

Earl.

At 7:23 am -0800 25/1/2009, 78-l-request at klickitat.78online.com wrote:
>"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