Isn’t this what you have always wanted?  A quick, handy reckoner for all those slang terms for money.  No longer the risk of getting your pony mixed up with your monkey and finding yourself £475 adrift on a deal.

One                            Quid, Nicker

Five                             Lady; Deep Sea Diver

Ten                              Ayrton

Fifteen                        Commodore

Twenty                        Score; Bobby Moore

Twenty-five                Pony

Fifty                             Bullseye

One Hundred              Ton

Five Hundred               Monkey

One Thousand            Grand; Bag

Money (general)         Bread; Dough; Dosh; Lolly; Readies; Nelsons

The list could go on, but I said this was to be a quick and handy guide, and I intend to keep it so.  I also said this was a guide to Cockney Rhyming Slang, which is not altogether true.  The derivation of some terms, like ‘pony’ and ‘monkey’ actually have their source in 19^th century India.

Many of the slang terms are relatively straightforward to comprehend––Ayrton Senna for a tenner, for example.  However, I think one term deserves a slightly fuller explanation, if only to illustrate its pure inventiveness.

The term ‘commodore’ to mean fifteen pounds is a relatively recent conception; at least, dating from no earlier than the late-1970s.  It takes its starting point from the fact that five pounds is known as a ‘lady’––Lady Godiva rhyming with a fiver.  1978 saw the release of the pop song Three Times a Lady written by Lionel Ritchie.  Converting the title of the song into a simple mathematical formula, you get 3 x 5––three times a fiver––or fifteen pounds.  And the group, which sung Three Times a Lady?  The Commodores.

Although, personally, I think fifteen pounds should have been called a Lionel.

© Simon Turner-Tree

A Turner-Tree is rhyming slang for twenty-three pounds.