Screenshot of Cockney slang ATM in London.
You always suspected that the British speak a different language than Americans. Now there’s proof.
For the next three months, five ATMs belonging to the Bank Machine in East London will be using cockney rhyming slang on their screens. You can choose whether to withdraw “sausage and mash” (cash), change your “Huckleberry Finn” — yep, that’s your PIN number — or just take a butcher’s at your “rattle and tank” balance.
The machines actually use something called rhyming slang, which is even more confusing than normal Cockney:
Cockney rhyming slang is a form of slang in which a word is replaced by a rhyming word, typically the second word of a two-word phrase, so stairs becomes “apples and pears”. The second word is then often dropped entirely, for example “I’m going up the apples”. To the uninitiated the meaning will not be immediately obvious.
One excited user has posted a full series of screenshots, along with the addresses of the machines in case you happen to be in London anytime soon. And he relates this story:
The cockney cashpoint had an ‘out of order’ sign over it when I arrived. The cashpoint light was flashing behind it though, so I took the sign off and had a look. At this point a shop worker from the shop next to it came out to inform me that ‘it’s out of order as it’s all turned to goobledygook’ (which I can only assume was in reference to the cockney!) I used the cockney cash machine anyway and took my photos, but the sign went back up afterwards.
On the other side of the coin, at least one actual Londoner is a bit miffed.
