April 26, 2016 at 2:36 am
Gary Varga (4/26/2016)
TomThomson (4/25/2016)
...the classic example is "dancers" which is rhyming slang for "stairs" (truncated and mutated "dancing bears")...??? Surely you mean "apples 'n' pears"!!!
I have never heard of Dancing Bears anywhere near Bow Bells.
I'll buy it though, my parents often referred to the stairs as the dancers and I never knew why. This is in the North of England so it may not have the same derivation.
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April 26, 2016 at 2:36 am
Yes, I always go up the apples for a meryl.
April 26, 2016 at 3:07 am
There are things that today are regarded as antipatterns which were the only reliable way of doing things yesterday.
Some features that are regarded as horrors (cursors and triggers spring to mind) filled a gap in process and design maturity. They were widely used and abused but the abuses have shackled them with a bad reputation. As organisations tend to favour revenue generation (new shiny ball) over cost savings (fixing tech debt) you will find the abuses and also the legitimate cases slandered as "bad practice"
April 26, 2016 at 7:03 am
Gary Varga (4/26/2016)
TomThomson (4/25/2016)
...the classic example is "dancers" which is rhyming slang for "stairs" (truncated and mutated "dancing bears")...??? Surely you mean "apples 'n' pears"!!!
a
"Apples an' pairs" is very rarely used (but often quoted as a classical example); it's usually not truncated to apples, perhaps because it's so little used. "dancers" is much more common. And it's not at all unusual to find two examples of rhyming slang which mean the same thing: one obvious example is "a nice pair of earthas" being the same as "a nice pair of georgies".
I have never heard of Dancing Bears anywhere near Bow Bells.
bear-baiting was rife in that area in the early 17th century, and when rhyming slang arose between 200 and 250 years later bear-baiting had mostly died out and dancing bears were the replacement for that traditional entertainment (bear-baiting became too expensive once bears were in short supply, dancing bears lasted a lot longer than baited bears; even in the early 17th century bears were not cheap, they would cost as much as a decent bible, and to have a bible a town might have to save money over years to ensure that when the current one wore out it could by a replacement - at least one town spent its bible fund on a bear instead of a bible (google "congleton beartown" for the story - any version in which a bible was sold to raise the money is wrong, it was the accumulated fund that was used).
Tom
April 26, 2016 at 7:37 am
Nicely written Phil!
I remind new consultants/employees that there is typically an urge to "do something" fast to prove worthiness. Gathering knowledge is "doing something". Better to take some time, understand the problem AND how/why the team does things and then push through a minor change to see how it all works, then move to bigger stuff.
April 26, 2016 at 7:48 am
'Whistle and Flute' is the most popular British rhyming slang for a suit, but there is a well-entrenched American version 'Fiddle and Flute', recorded before WW2 in the States. As regards the 'dancing bears', this is recorded in none of the many books of rhyming slang, but 'Apples and Pears' is Cockney in origin, as is 'Peaches and Pears', recorded on the pacific coast of the States in 1944. 'Dancing bears' is probably a British regional variation. There were certainly dancing bears around in the late 19th century. There are variants of rhyming slang in all English-speaking parts of the world.
Best wishes,
Phil Factor
April 26, 2016 at 7:52 am
TomThomson (4/26/2016)
...bear-baiting was rife in that area in the early 17th century, and when rhyming slang arose between 200 and 250 years later bear-baiting had mostly died out and dancing bears were the replacement for that traditional entertainment...
I wondered whether this was the case (bear baiting was very popular during Tudor times) and I have just seen references to the earliest recorded use being in 1670.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
April 26, 2016 at 7:54 am
Phil Factor (4/26/2016)
@Eric,The rise of rhyming slang was in response to the increasing enforcement of London's censorship laws. Originally, it was only used by a small number of cockney gangs and as a coded speech amongst actors, but was adopted by the popular music halls where entire sketches and songs were done in them to avoid the lord chancellor taking away their license. Any officer of the law would be baffled by all the laughter, cheers and whistles that accompanied the bizarre recitatives. The rhyming slang was generally chosen for its ironic element.
It is still useful for the Englishman travelling abroad to speak it so as to avoid accidentally causing any offence to the locals.
I can find no explanation for calling a suit a 'whistle' (whistle and flute) but it happened. I suspect that it applied to a 'loud' suit (bright colours or flashy tailoring)
I had no idea. Maybe I should get out more.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
May 7, 2016 at 6:42 pm
This article makes me want to tell the old joke, "consultants look at the client's watch and tell them what time it is." They certainly do not disparage the watch.
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