Got the Lambeth?

Categories: uncategorized

Tags: foundspeech, local

Date: 14 August 2008 21:04:09

Overheard in a pub:

"Got any Lambeth?"

No, nothign to do with bishops. Members of the pool team seeking chalk for queues. Lambeth Walk Chalk.

I think they make it up as they go along. Actually I think they really do sometimes. "Cockney rhyming slang" actually does exist but its not so much a local language as a kind of word game.

Culturally its perhaps the London equivalent of Glasgow's deep-fried Mars bars. Yes they exist, yes people do eat them occasionally, but its not exactly traditional folk culture, more a sort of long-running joke.