Spoonerisms were popular by us.
Cracket of pisps, anyone? Packet of crisps…
Grattle kids for kattle grids…
Did anyone else speak backslang?
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Not as a family, but my dad learned it as a butcher in London before the war.
e-crip for “price”
team for “meat”
rye-H for “hair” (riah)
He must have told us many more, but I can’t remember them at the moment.
Of course he came out with rhyming slang as well: sky-rocket - pocket
tit-fer-tat hat, were two of his usual ones.
Everyone knew rhyming slang, but backslang was for “insiders” in the trade (to talk over the heads of customers). I learned later that it was used in other communities as well as in the meat trade.
My partner’s family use it - eeff (eeffoc) and ekac are common in their house, along with deliberate mistranslations from Portuguese, such as overtable (= pudding, sobremesa).
reminds me of one which used to be popular on a social forum I used to inhabit:
orcheurs-de-vache for co-workers (cow-orkers 
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Just a portion of lyric from me for now.
My excuse for sneaking it in here, is that it was on Radio Cymru this morning.
Heart of Gold
Neil Young
I wanna live, I wanna give
I’ve been a miner for a heart of gold
It’s these expressions I never give
That keeps me searching for a heart of gold
And I’m getting old…
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In France in the 70s or maybe the 60s, all cool teenagers spoke “verlan” in which syllables or words were reversed (and a few more liberties). For ezample, “femme” became “meuf” and méchant (evil) became chanmé. I’m not sure if it’s still used. You may already have spotted that “verlan” comes from “à l’envers” / backwards. 
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1) Go on, hit me with a stunning song lyric.
I don’t believe in an interventionist God, but I know, darling, that you do.
2) When did you last laugh till you were weak and why?
Father Ted. The Father Jack dies episode.
3) Or does your family use alternative names for common things?
Not really a common thing, but I’m currently very proud of how our kids have turned ‘Sunshine Dan’ into ‘Sunshine DANT’. [Yes, they sing it with exactly that emphasis. Nothing accidental happening here.]
4) What is something you’ve recently found yourself having to explain over and over again ?
Grammar isn’t a real thing. Language is an emergent property that behaves in largely the same way as other complex adaptive systems.
5) What will be your focus for personal improvement in the coming months?
I need to have a good long run at being properly sugar-free again… 
6) Make up your own Friday Five question and answer it.
Am I going to have time to tell everyone about NAFOW, and our new idea, this coming week?
YES.
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Aran, that’s the song that really got me into Nick Cave, great choice 
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http://song-translations.moonfruit.com/#/divno-je-biti-nekomu-latino/4549238146 (original Croatian one and translation + video to listen to the song and all other data where to find it).
I don’t remember I ever laughed that hard.
Don’t remember such thing. Might be because of different culture and country or it just didn’t happen to me.
Something in my office to my team who makes the very same mistakes over and over again. I was a bit angry to be honest.
Opening my chakras and with that enabling my very being (soulful and physical) to perform better. Might be quite strange for many of you but that’s what I feel I have to do in order to function better and do things better in my life.
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Sorry Aran, don’t follow that. Could you explain what you mean, please? 
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We used a form of backslang that was slightly different:- Cagan yagou spageak bagackslagang?
You can probably work out what’s going on…
Stunning lyric? Too many choices, but I’d like to share two and although I’ve picked the same artist for both, any of her lyrics could be viewed as stunning. Guess I’m a little biased.
From “Siglo dy sail” by Meinir Gwilym on her “Tombola” album
“Cloi drws yr hen gell ac yna rhywun yn dy lusgo di i’r golau’n well”
(Shut the door of the old [familiar?] cell and then someone drags you into a better light)
I had slid down a slippery slope of depression, anxiety and stress and was living on my own having moved away from my wife. This lasted a year - I decided I was going to reconnect with some happier, safer times and that was the 70s, growing up in Wales. I decided to finish learning Welsh, found SSiW, was voted in as an Angel (bless all you guys, then and now) and discovered Meinir in that process. The song-line above told me that someone had dragged me into a better light and it turned into a turning-point for me.
The second lyric I’d like to share is from “Cân i Ti” from Meinir’s latest album “Llwybrau” and is basically a song you would sing to a young relative or to your child as a parent, full of wonderful, sage advice.
“Beth bynnag ddaw, beth bynnag fydd, mae hi’n ddigon i fod yn chdi”
(Whatever comes, whatever will be, it’s enough [just] to be you]
Whatever kind of person you are, mouse, lion, bear etc, just be who you are. We are being reassured that it’s ok to be who we are and many people really need to hear this!! (But especially me!!)
Thanks Meinir, for absolutely being who you are!
PS Meinir, I love “Gormod”!!!
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Yob for boy is one that escaped out into wider society.
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1) Go on, hit me with a stunning song lyric.
Well, ‘All Along the Watchtower’ - words by Bob Dylan and as played & sung by Jimi Hendrix - is probably too well known.
So, @JohnYoung has already chosen one by Neil Young and I’ll choose another: ‘Don’t Let It Bring You Down’:
Old man lying by the side of the road
With the lorries rolling by
Blue moon sinking from the weight of the load
And the buildings scrape the sky
Cold wind ripping down the alley at dawn
And the morning paper flies
Dead man lying by the side of the road
With the daylight in his eyes
Don’t let it bring you down
It’s only castles burning
Find someone who’s turning
And you will come around
Blind man running through the light of the night
With an answer in his hand
Come on down to the river of sight
And you can really understand
Red lights flashing through the window in the rain
Can you hear the sirens moan?
White cane lying in a gutter in the lane
If you’re walking home alone
Don’t let it bring you down
It’s only castles burning
Find someone who’s turning
And you will come around
2) When did you last laugh till you were weak and why?
I tend not to find standard jokes terribly funny, and as for modern TV comedians well the less said the better as far as I’m concerned. But I find certain situations and individual people really amusing. There was one guy on a group holiday a couple of years ago who was such a natural comedian that he had me in semi-permanent stitches, and it got to a point where I had to avoid him mealtimes etc as I just couldn’t stop laughing. Yes I probably need help.
3) When I was a child in the 70s a bakery van used to come to our street… does your family use alternative names for common things?
Can I skew this a bit towards a nickname? When I was very young for some obscure reason I used to call my grandfather ‘Gog’, and this became the standard nickname everyone used for him. This was Caerdydd in the 50s & 60s, when one hardly knew anyone who spoke Welsh (my other grandparents did, but that’s another story). Fast forward 60 years and it’s only since SSIW that I’ve come across the popular use of Gog for Gogledd. I’ve got used to it now but when I first saw it I could barely believe it.
4) What is something you’ve recently found yourself having to explain over and over again ?
Why I am learning Welsh. There are a tiny few people who get it immediately; but despite all the support one gets from this community, I find there’s a knee-jerk reaction by most folks in Lloegr, if only at the joke level, to all things Welsh.
5) What will be your focus for personal improvement in the coming months?
Getting to bed occasionally before 1.30 in the morning.
6) Make up your own Friday Five question and answer it.
Q. Why don’t I answer this Pump am y Penwythnos thread more often?
A. ‘Cos you’re so blinkin’ uncreative, mate, that you never get as far as being able to make up a Friday Five question.
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Just now! It might just be my sense of humour, but…
I was in the kitchen explaining to my son about how one person in a Uwch-level Welsh class who insists on speaking English a lot, means that everyone else starts speaking English as well, however much the tutor tries to change it back. In what other sort of classes does that happen? “In fact, the class is more for socialising than learning Welsh - why don’t they do something else such as Art?”, I said.
“Hang on a moment” my son (who just been to a life-drawing class), replied. You mean go to a life-drawing class and do life-writing instead: ‘There’s a man sat in front of me, with his bum hanging over the edge of the stool’. The others gather round - “Oh, that’s much easier than drawing, we’ll write down what we can see!”
Well, the tears were rolling down my face and I couldn’t breathe - I could imagine it as a sketch on Dim Byd.
But the serious point is, other than language courses, where else do you voluntarily sign up to do something and then do the opposite?
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Probably needs a separate thread, one of these days…
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I worked in the butchers department in David Greggs, when I was 16. The butchers spoke back slang all the time. I can’t remember much but I do recall if a woman/girl walked into the shop wearing a red hat. The boys would shout, what sounded like, “der tach on rounders”
It made little sense to me but was supposed to mean, red hat no drawers! If you remove the ‘s’ and ‘c’ it would mean. Red hat no reward!!
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A finnau ‘fyd
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Love it! I so wish I could tell my dad about this.
Was that the one in which he drinks toilet cleaner or something?
That was an unbelievably good show that I was a bit late in discovering. Thank goodness for repeats.
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