Multilingual Rhyming Slang

[Jonathon Green]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Sokolowski" <psokolowski at MERRIAM-WEBSTER.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 2:58 PM
Subject: Re: Multilingual Rhyming Slang


> Hi folks:
>
> >- rhyming slang seems to have been, and remains an English language
> >phenomenon.
>
> I don't see how we can make such a generalization without near-native
> argotic knowledge of the languages we're excluding here.  Wordplay and
> fun with rhyming are a part of language, not a part of English.
>
> Just seems a bit myopic.
>

As the initiator of the generalization, I take the point. And any examples
from other slangs to back it up would be received with much interest. Of
course every language lends itself to play, rhyming often being part of it,
but I would still suggest that rhyming slang, as a fully realised system,
does seem to be an English language creation. I don't believe, for instance,
that French, with an extensive argot (as in = slang) of its own, appears to
offer any such subset. But I'd be happy to be proved wrong.

Jonathon Green