Cockney Of The North: Northumberland Widow Receives ‘Brown Bread’ Letter For Dead Husband

 

ARE you brown bread? That’s Cockney rhyming slang for “dead”. Sheila Delhoy spotted the phrase on a letter sent to her husband Ken who died in February 2008. In 2010, Northumberland-based building suppliers Wack wrote to “Brown Bread” Ken. Now the same firm has delivered another letter to “Brown Bread”.

Says Sheila: “When my son Tony found out he rang the company straight away. He said to them ‘are you going to make this an annual thing to remind my mum her husband is dead and make her upset?’”

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Anorak

Posted: 13th, November 2013 | In: Reviews, Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment

East London Cash Machines Get Regional Dialects

ON Commercial Street, close to gentrified Spitalfields Market in east London, bankers at the cash machine can withdraw their money guided by Cockney rhyming slang.

The typical tourist or marketing professional using the machine will feel quite the little pencil squeezer as he takes hold of his Ayrton.

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Anorak

Posted: 25th, August 2009 | In: Money | Comments (2)