Crystal's Adventures in a Cockney Wonderland

Cockney Rhyming Slang, as anyone who has stood at the till in a London souvenir shop could tell you, is a set of slang expressions based on taking the original word (say, "stairs") and rhyming it with the final word of a short phrase ("apples and pears"), and then, in some cases, shortening the new expression ("apples"). This can lead to a sentence such as: "Careful you don't slip and fall down the apples". While the slang is often cited as the "secret language" of the Cockney population of L…