Hi!
I wanted to find the meaning of a couple of cockney words, and whilst browsing online, found this website. (What a good idea!) I don't know whether Arnie and Richard English are still around, as I notice their posts are 2002, but worth a go. Do you know the meaning of Lardy? and also Fence? As used in cockney rhyming slang.

Welcome, oh wise sophie!

I'm not British, but was able to find this:

dense = garden fence
cigar = la-di dah

Richard and Arnie are addicted regulars, and will doubtless chime in.

Welcome, Sophie! Yes, Arnie and Richard and Bob know a lot about cockney.

When I search for cockney on Wordcraft, there are 84 citations! Here is a very early thread on it; and here's a tranlator on it that Arnie had posted.

Okay...come on British posters, answer the lady!

Cockney Rhyming Slang is a living language and new words and changes to existing words are happening all the time. I'd not heard of la di da or fence previously - but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

I am not, by the way, a Cockney - so my knowledge is not first hand.

The only use of "fence" - not in rhyming slang though - that I know of is to mean a person who receives and sells stolen goods. I don't know where the word comes from, but at a guess it is because a fence is a "middleman" between the thief and the purchaser.

I've not come across "lardy" apart from the cake, although it might mean fat. "La-di-da", confusingly, can mean "cigar", "car", or "star" in rhyming slang.

Lardy and fence aren't rhyming slang as I understand it either. I agree with Arnie for their meanings. Even BBC Radio 4 used lardy quite recently - it is very common, slightly cool, often self-deprecating and very current.

But I too am not a cockney. Although I was often called one when I lived in the North-East, where is it as a catch-all term for anybody from within a 100-mile radius of London.

We use the word fence as Arnie defined it, too. It's always interesting to find international terms like that.

Thanks to all who replied to me! I'm re-watching every series of "Minder", my favourite series from the 80s, at the moment. I know most of the words mean but the odd ones come up that I don't know. I think Lardy was shortened from Lardy-Da, in relation to Arthur Daley's cigar.

Peter, is used to mean cell, as in prison cell. Apparantly this is Peter Dell = cell. Does anyone know who Peter Dell was? I've never heard of him!

I've never heard of Peter Dell, and a quick Google doesn't throw up anyone who might fit. Doesn't 'peter' mean a safe, as in a bank?

Pete Tong (a DJ) = 'wrong', and Peter Kay (a comedian) = 'gay', but they are both too modern for inclusion in Minder.

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
Doesn't 'peter' mean a safe, as in a bank?

that's right and peter used as a verb is break into a safe and a peterman is a safebreaker. I've checked various sources and none have a definitive answer on the etymology although most agree that it's likely to be from some now forgotten biblical pun. The word has apparently been around since the 17th century.

From a bit more investigation, it seems that it did, in seventies rhyming slang, also mean a cell. I haven't found a definitive etymology but there are a number of internet sources suggesting "Peter Pan" = "can".

quote:

The only use of "fence" - not in rhyming slang though - that I know of is to mean a person who receives and sells stolen goods.

Well of course there's the noun use of "fence," too, though I assume you were just speaking of the slang definition.

Anyway, I found the word "fence" interesting, so humor me for a minute? According to the OED, "fence" comes from "defense," which comes from the Latin defensum, meaning "thing forbidden." (Arnie, is that your understanding of the Latin word defensum?) That's where the "fence" in your yard comes from, as it is "defending" your property. While the OED cites the definition of "to purchase or sell with guilty knowledge (stolen goods)" as slang, it provides a source for that use from 1610. When does a slang word become a regular word?

arnie: Doesn't 'peter' mean a safe, as in a bank?
Bob Hale: that's right and peter used as a verb is break into a safe and a peterman is a safebreaker. I've checked various sources and none have a definitive answer on the etymology although most agree that it's likely to be from some now forgotten biblical pun.

OED lists peter as "A.6b Criminals' slang. A safe or cash box..." For this sense it gives the following etymology:

In sense A.6 prob. alluding to the identification of St. Peter as the holder of the keys to heaven ..., although perh. cf. also sense Phrases; or perh. in senses A.6b and A.6c punning on the etymological meaning of the name, ‘stone’.