TimberHut

Has anyone ever met an American who gets/understands rhyming slang? I haven't yet.

Why is your mouth called north & south - and not east & west?

Do they have a lot of barber shops at this Barnet Fair then?

etc etc

It is cool though cos (leaving any accent issues aside) you can basically talk a totally different language and they are clueless as to what you are going on about.

SultanOfSwing

No, but I am trying to teach it to my daughter as she learns to speak. Just to piss off my wife

Sally Redux

They are clueless as to what I am going on about at the best of times.

kimilseung

I think that tea kettle, but also pint of beer, when I snake in the grass, if they had taxi rank. If you know what I mean

rpjs

OH does, but she is a sociolinguist by trade. She can also do a better London "Jafakean" accent than I can.

SultanOfSwing

I get that a lot too!

Bob

This....but then I think so is most of BE

Uncle Ebenezer

I find that, once I explain that it is rhyming slang, they don't have a problem understanding it. Speaking it without explaining it is another matter. They're always going to find it amusingly confusing.

Maybe you're just surrounded by idiots.

TimberHut

There is no 'maybe' about that!

SultanOfSwing

I suppose, if one used it in context as well - like saying you're "heading up the apples and pears" or "I'll have to ask the old trouble and strife if she's free for dinner ..." - it would probably be understood.

I usually only use it at home so I have limited experience but I do know that most people I am in regular contact with pick up on my British colloquialisms pretty easily and a few have adopted some of the words themselves. My wife's friend, for example, inadvertently taught her 15 year old the word 'knobjockey' because she'd read it on one of my facebook posts and found it funny

Uncle Ebenezer

My wife's favourite swear word is "bollocks" and my brother-in-law even chose it for his dog's name.

SultanOfSwing

Bollocks does tend to be a popular one over here. My daughter, being the veritable sponge that all toddlers are, picked that one up from me when she overheard me stubbing my toe one morning

Now she runs around saying "Bowwoks. Bowwoks, daddy" ...

Sally Redux

It's taters today.

Uncle Ebenezer

Cold enough to freeze the bollocks off a brass monkey?

Sally Redux

For LA, yes

I heard somebody who is native to this area said to another American, "I'm a Valley Girl, I don't understand slang." So maybe there are regional variations in how well it would be understood.