Tuesday, 12 September 2023

Costermongers and backslang

 

Costermongers and backslang

All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons



I mentioned backslang in a previous post. The London costermongers of the early 19th century invented it as a private means of communicating with each other. It is still used in prisons today and, bizarrely, by tennis players. In 2010, two English players used it for privacy on foreign courts.

Basically, in English, it is created by taking a word and saying it backwards, thus, boy becomes yob. In Victorian times a yob was not an uncouth youth as is implied now, but simply, a boy. Monosyllabic words are quite easy and not all words are reversed. Some are reversed and have attachments. Sometimes the words would be reversed according to their spelling rather than their sound, so knife, which might be expected to become ‘fine’, was actually ‘eefink’. You can read more about it here.

Costermongers were working the streets in London from the 1400s but the name first appeared in the 1500s. The word costermonger comes from ‘costard’, an apple from mediaeval times, and ‘monger’, a trader. The term ‘Costermonger’ eventually developed to cover anyone in the street trading in fresh fruit and vegetables, fish and meat, flowers and herbs, brooms, mats, coal, matches and many other commodities from barrows, wheelbarrows, carts and baskets. There is more information here though it's quite dated.

There were many attempts to clear the streets of the costermongers during the reigns of Elizabeth I, Charles I and Victoria. They all failed. They were a loud and colourful part of life, in large cities across Europe as well as London. They cried their wares . . . ‘Two bunches a penny, primroses, Two bunches a penny!’, ‘Rabbit, rabbit! Nice fat rabbit!’, ‘Strawberries. All ripe! All ripe!’

They looked after their own and each other, worked hard and showed no political or religious allegiance. It was a hard life and every penny was hard-earned. With the advent of high street retailers, the costermongers’ presence declined. Now they are represented by the Pearly Kings and Queens and applauded for their charitable work. 

18 comments:

  1. I have never heard of costermongers or backslang, though I have heard "yob" and yobbo although I am not sure of the meaning, I think it meant careless misbehaving. I'm happy to be corrected if I am wrong.
    I remember "greengrocers" who drove around once or twice a week selling fruits and vegetables way back in 1973, in the outer suburbs where supermarkets were hard to get to for women at home with small children and no car, but I think they died out soon after, ditto the "bedman" as my toddler called him, the man who drove around selling loaves, rolls, and sweet buns from his van once a week.

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    1. When my mother was a child, milk was bought by the jugful from a cart and the fish were brought round in baskets once a week.

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  2. Fascinating. A lot of that is new to me, thanks. xx

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    1. It's a by-gone life. Everything is neater, tidier, duller today.

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  3. Yes! I remember fishmongers, fruit and veggers,
    wheeling their barrows, when l was a kid....five
    years old, l remember they all had very loud voices...
    And you could'nt understand a word of it...! :).
    Mind you...even when l returned back to this country
    in 73..l had just got married, after four years we moved
    into my current home, l've lived here now for 45yrs....
    And every Thursday a fisherman pushing a flat wheelbarrow
    full of mackerel, came up round, shouting...what ever it was...
    I used to pop out and buy 2~4 every Thursday...
    In fact l bought three mackerel, off the fisherman last Thursday,
    on the town market...they cost me £10.80...Yes! £10.80, Jeeeese! :(
    I remember when they were less than a pound each...!
    Still...I'll enjoy the last one for lunch to~day, with a few prawns...! :O).
    🐟 🐟 🐟 🐟 🐟 🐟 🐟 🐟 🐟 🐟 🐟 🐟 🐟 🐟 🐟 🐟 🐟

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    1. Farmers' markets are very popular now, but not cheap. Is anything cheap? Fresh air, maybe.

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    2. HaHa! No! Not even fresh air....Some famous people
      are bottling it and selling it at enormous expense, saying
      it's the same air that 'they' breathe....And..Yes! Some
      idiots are buying it...
      There's a guy here in Dorset...Leo De Watts...who collects
      air from the hillsides, which he then puts in jars and sells
      for £80 each....And..says he's sold 100 jars to clients in
      China...! :(.

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    3. My goodness - some idiots will buy anything!

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  4. Very interesting. When we were staying in with my sister in law in northern England earlier this year, a man came to the door selling various things. Ah, I just asked and it was the Rimington salesman. She bought tea to take home to give to my mother but we never got the chance.

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    1. Going door to door on spec is known as hawking, but maybe the Rimington man is a regular and expected salesman.

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  5. It's so sad that the folklore disappears or they change it and takes the soul of the whole city. Ever since the Olympics I don't like London anymore ! I always stopped there on my way to Eastbourne. Now it looks like little Dubai and it is not the same at all than when I was there for the first time in 1998. Here is a little town with giants, one is black and bad. The case because the bad giant is black went until the parliament because of racism. A bad person has not to be black ! Instead working on important things. Even the black people protested !

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    1. London is overcrowded and too busy, even in the small hours of the night.

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  6. Interesting post. It never occurred to me before that 'yob' was boy backwards!

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    1. It's interesting how 'yob' has become pejorative, too.

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  7. I'd heard of costermongers and even knew what they were, but had no idea where the word came from. I'd never heard of backslang though. It did make me think of my Dad, who taught us how to say our names - and other words - backwards, just for the fun of it. He would have been fascinated by this - and most of - your posts! xxx

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  8. It's fun to turn names backwards, though some are easier than others. x x x

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  9. Hi Janice - that was enlightening ... I remember salesmen back in the day ... and seeing huge churns for the milk on the granite steps in Cornwall ... we were in Surrey - not far from you ... that area was being developed! Cheers Hilary

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  10. It's interesting to think about how people used to live before 'convenience stores'. Simpler times, maybe happier, too.

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