Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language

Examples are shit on a shingle ‘chipped beef on toast’; over-shoulder boulderholders
‘bra’; Wham, bam, thank you ma’am!; hoddy-doddy (all arse and no
body) ‘a short clumsy person’ (archaic); om–tiddly–om–pom and umpti–poo
‘toilet’; tantadlin tart ‘turd’; tallywags or twiddle-diddles ‘testicles’ (both
archaic); doodle, diddle, dink, dong ‘penis’; tuzzy-muzzy ‘vagina’; rantumscantum
‘copulate’; numerous terms for ‘masturbate’: beat the bishop, beat the
beaver, pull the pope, pull one’s pud, crank the shank, jerkin’ the gherkin,
tweak one’s twinkie, juice the sluice and stump-jump. 37 Australian expressions
for male urination are the alliteration point Percy at the porcelain and the
rhyme siphon the python.
The advert for Miller beer, which reads Wear the fox hat, is a conceit based
on the rhyming slang of ordinary working folk. 38 The following examples
vary from the transparent to the opaque:
Would you Adam
and Eve it?
Get down to brass
tacks
He was ducking
and diving
Use your loaf
boat
barnet
minces
hampsteads
bristols
thrupnies
khyber
aris
He lost his bottle
cobblers
rabbit on
Bad language? Jargon, slang, swearing and insult 73
‘Would you believe it?’
‘Get to the facts’
‘skiving, shirking’
‘use your head; think;
be smart’
‘face’
‘hair’
‘eyes’
‘teeth’
‘breasts’
‘breasts’
‘arse’
‘arse’
‘he was scared’
‘rubbish, nonsense’
‘talk and talk’
[loaf of bread]
[boat race] 39
[Barnet Fair]
[mince pies]
[Hampstead Heath] 40
[Bristol city ¼ titty]
[thrupnies ( threepenny
bits ¼ tits]
[Khyber Pass]
[aris and [lose one’s] bottle
( Aristotle ) bottle and
glass ¼ arse] 41
[cobblers awls ¼ balls]
[rabbit and pork ¼ talk]
Slang interacts with X-phemism in much the same way as jargon does. The
verses which follow use rhyming slang, which has been italicized for salience.
One function of some of this (and other) rhyming slang is euphemism.