| I was born in the UK and lived for many years in the | | | | for instance two. After that, one finds a word which |
| USA. When I was living there and went to watch an | | | | is commonly associated with the word |
| English comedy movie, I could always pick out the | | | | âtwoâ making it into a phrase. A |
| other Britishers in the audience because we were the | | | | âfour by twoâ is a piece of wood |
| only ones to laugh at many jokes. Street English is | | | | four inches by two inches. So one COULD say |
| very different to the English that you will find in a | | | | âI met this man who was a four by |
| text book. | | | | two,â meaning a Jew. That |
| One of the more confusing idioms is the so-called | | | | wouldnât be too difficult but after a while it |
| rhyming slang. This originated in the London markets | | | | gets worse. Once the phrase, four by two is well |
| from the workers who used it as a way of avoiding | | | | known, the rhyming word is dropped. Thus one |
| their bosses understanding what they were saying. | | | | would say âI met this guy who was a |
| The way it works is this: One takes a word like say, | | | | four.â For the uninitiated, this would be |
| Jew. Then one finds a word that rhymes with Jew, | | | | indecipherable. |