Editing Rhyming slang (section)

=== Literature ===
In modern literature, Cockney rhyming slang is used frequently in the novels and short stories of [[Kim Newman]], for instance in the short story collections "The Man from the Diogenes Club" (2006) and "Secret Files of the Diogenes Club" (2007), where it is explained at the end of each book.<ref>{{cite web | author = Newman, Kim  | date = 18 June 2014 | title = ''Cult'': A Shambles in Belgravia | website = BBC.com | url = http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/sherlock/shamblesinbelgravia1.shtml | access-date = 26 January 2017 }}</ref>

It is also parodied in ''[[Going Postal]]'' by [[Terry Pratchett]], which features a geriatric Junior Postman by the name of Tolliver Groat, a speaker of 'Dimwell Arrhythmic Rhyming Slang', the only rhyming slang on the [[Discworld (world)|Disc]] which ''does not actually rhyme''. Thus, a wig is a 'prunes', from 'syrup of prunes', an obvious parody of the Cockney ''syrup'' from ''syrup of figs – wig''.  There are numerous other parodies, though it has been pointed out that the result is even more impenetrable than a conventional rhyming slang and so may not be quite so illogical as it seems, given the assumed purpose of rhyming slang as a means of communicating in a manner unintelligible to all but the initiated.

In the book ''[[Good-Bye to All That|Goodbye to All That]]'' by [[Robert Graves]], a beer is a "broken square" as [[Royal Welch Fusiliers|Welch Fusiliers]] officers walk into a pub and order broken squares when they see men from the Black Watch. [[The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada|The Black Watch]] had a minor blemish on its record of otherwise unbroken squares. Fistfights ensued.

In [[Dashiell Hammett]]'s ''[[The Dain Curse]]'', the protagonist exhibits familiarity with Cockney rhyming slang, referring to gambling at dice with the phrase "rats and mice."

Cockney rhyming slang is one of the main influences for the dialect spoken in ''[[A Clockwork Orange (novel)|A Clockwork Orange]]'' (1962).<ref>{{cite news |title=A Clockwork Orange and Nadsat |url=https://www.anthonyburgess.org/a-clockwork-orange/a-clockwork-orange-and-nadsat/ |access-date=28 June 2022 |work=AnthonyBurgess.com}}</ref> The author of the novel, [[Anthony Burgess]], also believed the phrase "as queer as a clockwork orange" was Cockney slang having heard it in a London pub in 1945, and subsequently named it in the title of his book.<ref>[http://www.malcolmtribute.freeiz.com/aco/review.html ''Clockwork Orange: A review with William Everson''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120710224804/http://www.malcolmtribute.freeiz.com/aco/review.html |date=10 July 2012 }}. Retrieved: 2012-03-11.</ref>