Regarding the above posting - excuse my slip; I meant "pears" of course, not pairs.

For more examples of rhyming slang, see Brophy and Partridge.

The "put up your dukes" entry is incomplete. Working-class Englishmen in London used a form of code known as rhyming slang. Examples: Apples & pairs = stairs, plates of meat = feet. Often the rhyming phrase was shortened, thus "titfor" became slang for "hat," because it was an abbreviated version of "tit for tat." In this argot, "Duke of Yorks" was rhyming slang for "forks" (a jokey usage, as hands are made to serve as forks when one is down on 'is luck). In this way, "Duke of Yorks" was shortened to "dukes."