The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #35579   Message #486526
Posted By: Snuffy
18-Jun-01 - 08:23 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: song in rhyming slang
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: song in rhyming slang
I was sitting one day by the Jerri-o-miah [fire]
Warming my plates of meat [feet]
When there came a rat-tat at the Rory O'More [door]
What fair made me raspberry tart [heart] beat

There on her Todd [own] stood a charming young maid
Her Barnett Fair [hair]blowing in the breeze
Not one dicky bird [word] from her North & South [mouth]came
But her mince pies [eyes] weren't half saying 'please'

Unusually, here the rhyming slang is spelled out in full - common practice is to omit the rhyming bit and just give the first half. Thus for 'stairs' it would be more common to say 'apples' rather than 'apples and pears', or 'plates' rather than 'plates of meat' for feet. Part of the purpose of this sort of language is to deliberately exclude those not in the know, and omitting the rhyming bit helps in this.