'Barrow boy' stock market slang disappearing

Cockney rhyming slang has dominated the speech of foreign exchange traders in the City of London until recently, according to a Reuters piece. But with the growth in computer trading, as opposed to face-to-face interaction, and with dealers being increasingly sought among graduates from top universities, as opposed to local lads, who probably in the past worked on the family market stall in their free time, the language on the trading floors is changing.

 

Some expressions are still very common, eg half a yard of cable: the 'yard' in the expression is a billion, and rhymes with milliard, the French word for a billion (well it rhymes when milliard is said with an English pronunciation, where the final consonant is pronounced), while 'cable' refers to pound/dollar transactions and refers to the transatlantic telegraph cable. Even non-bankers know the expression the Old Lady (of Threadneedle Street); that is the Bank of England. The epithet 'the Old Lady' was coined by Richard Sheridan (who wrote The School for Scandal, but who was also an MP) in a speech to Parliament. He referred to the Bank as 'an elderly lady in the City of great credit and long standing'. Bill and Ben is rhyming slang for 'yen'.

 

Numbers and currencies have their own slang words. Here are some, copied from the aforementioned Reuters article:

A Spaniard: 1 (from the Spanish name Juan)

A prickly: 2 A prickly pear

A carpet: 3 (UK prisoners used to be allowed carpet in their cells after 3 years)

Lady Godiva: 5 (Rhymes with fiver)

Ayrton: 10 (Tenner rhymes with Ayrton Senna, the late racing car driver)

A bully: 50 (From the 50-point bullseye on a dartboard)

A monkey: 500 (The 500-Indian rupee note used to have a picture of a monkey on it)

Currencies:

The loonie: Canadian dollar (A waterfowl named the loon is depicted on Canada's one-dollar coin)

The kiwi: NZ dollar (National bird of New Zealand)

The Aussie: Australian dollar

The stokkie: Swedish crown

The nokkie: Norwegian crown

 

Here's the full article.

Comments

[digital options trading]

Interesting post. It is so true. When I came from Israel to London to study economies, after studying a bit in Israel, the terminology they used in London was a bit different from the one I knew.