Cockney rhyming slang is the product of the eternal human fascination with rhyme and word-play. Its beginnings reach back to the first part of the 19th century when its speakers were the inhabitants of London from the area around St Mary-le-Bow church in the old City. This type of slang has a unique way of word-formation: a common word is replaced by a phrase of two or three elements that rhymes with it and then the second rhyming element is omitted in most cases by a process called hemiteleia. This makes the new slang term unintelligible to outsiders since its meaning is totally at variance with that in standard language and the key to the etymology, the rhyme, is lost. Rhyming slang is most prolific in coining nouns, but adjectives, verbs and even whole sentences can be replaced. Today rhyming slang has spread beyond the UK to several other English-speaking countries and these variants all contribute to its further development.
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