Long before online shopping, before supermarkets, before high street chains dominated British retail, there were the markets. Petticoat Lane, Brick Lane, Portobello Road, Camden—these trading places were the commercial heart of working-class London, and they developed their own distinctive language. Market trader slang served practical purposes: attracting customers, misleading competitors, and creating community among stallholders. Much of this vocabulary has survived, some becoming standard British English, some preserved only among aging traders, and some still ringing out across market stalls today.
The Market World
To understand market slang, you need to understand the market world. Trading from stalls required quick communication, constant performance, and a sharp eye for advantage.
Competition was fierce: Traders selling similar goods needed to distinguish themselves and undercut rivals.
Margins were thin: Every sale mattered, and pricing had to be flexible and responsive.
Trust was complicated: Customers might be suspicious; traders might sell questionable goods; everyone was looking for advantage.
Community was real: Traders knew each other, helped each other (sometimes), and developed shared vocabulary.
This environment bred specialized language—words for prices, for goods, for customers, for the endless hustle of market life.
Pricing Vocabulary
Money and prices required extensive vocabulary:
Traditional Money Terms (pre-decimalization, some surviving):
- A “joey” was a threepenny bit
- A “tanner” was sixpence
- A “bob” was a shilling
- “Half a bar” was ten shillings
- A “quid” was a pound (still current)
- A “fiver” was five pounds (still current)
- A “tenner” was ten pounds (still current)
Market-Specific Terms:
Pricing Strategies:
Customer Categories
Traders had vocabulary for different customer types:
“Punter”: General term for customer, especially one vulnerable to persuasion. “Look at those punters”—fresh targets.
“Mug”: Foolish customer, easy to deceive. “He’s a mug” meant someone who’d pay too much or believe dubious claims.
“Billy”: Sometimes meant a gullible customer (though origins vary).
“Grafters”: Customers who drove hard bargains, difficult to make money from.
“Regulars”: Returning customers, valuable for steady trade.
“Browsers” or “Time-wasters”: People who looked without buying—the bane of every market trader.
Goods and Quality
Products needed vocabulary too:
“Hookey” or “bent”: Stolen goods. Many markets had reputations for selling items of uncertain provenance.
“Snide”: Fake, counterfeit, inferior. “That’s snide gear” meant fake merchandise.
“Kosher”: Genuine, legitimate. From Yiddish via the East End’s Jewish community. “Is it kosher?” asked about authenticity.
“Gear”: Merchandise generally. “Quality gear” vs “rubbish gear.”
“Swag”: Cheap goods, promotional items, or stolen goods depending on context.
“Seconds”: Factory seconds, items with minor defects sold cheaply.
“Job lot”: Mixed batch bought cheap, sold as bargains.
“End of line”: Products being discontinued, sold at reduced prices.
The Art of the Pitch
Market traders developed elaborate selling techniques, each with its vocabulary:
“The build-up”: Creating interest before revealing price.
“Flashing”: Showing goods attractively to draw attention.
“Topping”: Adding extra items to sweeten a deal.
“Spiel”: The sales patter itself—from Yiddish for “play.” A “good spiel” could sell anything.
“Pitch”: Both the physical stall location and the sales technique.
“Drawing a crowd”: Essential first step. Various techniques existed.
“Mugging” (customers): Working them psychologically toward purchase.
“Closing”: Securing the sale, getting money in hand.
“Dropping the price”: Apparent reduction, often starting from inflated figure.
Communication Between Traders
Traders needed to communicate without customers understanding:
Backslang: Reversing words for secrecy. “Ecilop” for police. “Yennep” for penny. “Delo” for old. This system allowed traders to discuss matters privately in public.
Rhyming slang: Could serve similar purposes, especially the abbreviated forms where the rhyming word is dropped.
Numbers: Various systems for calling out prices or signals to partners without customers understanding.
Gestures: Non-verbal communication could signal price changes, warnings, or instructions.
Petticoat Lane Specifically
Petticoat Lane (officially Middlesex Street), the famous East End Sunday market, developed particular traditions:
Jewish influence: The market’s historically Jewish character meant Yiddish vocabulary was common. “Shtum” (silent), “schmaltz” (sentimentality), “schnorrer” (freeloader), “shtick” (routine, gimmick).
Clothing vocabulary: As a major clothing market, specific terms for garments, fabrics, sizes, and styles developed.
Community terms: Regular traders knew each other for generations; family businesses passed down vocabulary along with the pitch.
Other London Markets
Different markets had different characters:
Brick Lane: Heavy South Asian influence in later decades, mixing Bengali and Cockney vocabulary.
Portobello Road: Antiques market developed its own terms for periods, styles, and authentication.
Camden: When it became fashionable in the 1980s-90s, youth culture vocabulary mixed with traditional market slang.
Billingsgate (fish market): Extremely specialized vocabulary for fish types, freshness, and trading.
Smithfield (meat market): Similar specialization for meat, with its own timing (night trading) and vocabulary.
Traditional Calls and Cries
Markets were noisy places, and traders developed distinctive calls:
“Lovely jubbly!”: General exclamation, supposedly originating from an orange drink brand but popularized by Only Fools and Horses.
“Come and get it!”: Universal appeal.
“Going cheap!”: Advertising bargains.
“Roll up, roll up!”: Originally fairground, adopted by markets.
Price announcements: Often rhythmic and repetitive. “Pound a bowl! Pound a bowl! Lovely strawberries, pound a bowl!”
“That’s yer lot!”: Signaling end of sale, time pressure.
Market Slang in Popular Culture
Television brought market slang to national audiences:
Only Fools and Horses: Del Boy’s market trading made phrases like “lovely jubbly” nationally famous. The show presented market culture affectionately.
EastEnders: The fictional Bridge Street Market included stallholders using market vocabulary.
Various documentaries: Programs about markets have preserved recordings of traditional traders.
Comedy: Stand-up comedians from market backgrounds incorporated the language into their acts.
Decline and Survival
Traditional market culture has declined:
Supermarkets: Killed demand for many market goods.
Chain retail: High streets standardized.
Gentrification: Market areas became expensive, pushing out traditional traders.
Changing demographics: Original market communities dispersed.
Regulation: Health, safety, and licensing requirements increased.
But markets haven’t disappeared. Farmers’ markets, food markets, vintage markets, and “artisan” markets have grown, though their vocabulary differs from traditional street trading. Some old markets survive, and older traders maintain traditional vocabulary.
Learning Market Slang
If you want to understand or use market vocabulary:
Visit surviving markets: Ridley Road, Queens Market, and others maintain traditional culture.
Talk to older traders: They’re often happy to share stories and vocabulary.
Watch archival footage: Documentary archives contain footage of markets in their heyday.
Read accounts: Oral histories capture the language as it was spoken.
The Legacy
Market trader slang contributed to British English:
“Punter”: Now means any customer, audience member, or participant.
“Spiel”: Standard word for sales talk or practiced routine.
“Kosher”: Used nationwide for legitimate/genuine.
“Gear”: Still means goods or equipment.
“Pitch”: Means sales presentation in business contexts.
Various money terms: Quid, fiver, tenner are standard British English.
Conclusion
Market trader slang represents a working-class commercial culture that shaped British English. The vocabulary of Petticoat Lane, Brick Lane, and countless other markets spread through generations of traders, their families, and their customers until some terms became standard English while others faded with the communities that used them.
When you call something “kosher” or describe someone’s “spiel” or refer to “punters,” you’re using the language of market traders—people who stood in all weather selling goods and creating a vocabulary equal to the task.
The markets may be quieter now, the traditional calls fainter, but the language survives. It’s part of how Britain talks—and a reminder that everyday speech often has working roots, born not in universities or offices but in stalls and crowds, in rain and cold, in the endless effort to make a living selling whatever people would buy.
Roll up, roll up, indeed.
