April 13, 1998

raspberry

How did the use of "raspberries" get from the fruit to the derisive sound also known as the "Bronx cheer"?

The word raspberry in the sense 'a derisive sputtering or vibrating noise made with the lips and tongue' is probably the only common American word that derives from rhyming slang.

Rhyming slang, also called Cockney rhyming slang, is a form of slang where a rhyming phrase is substituted for an intended word, and often the rhyming element of the phrase drops out. Thus apples and pears is rhyming slang for stairs, and often the "and pears" is left out, giving apples as a slang term for stairs. Another example--one which had a small degree of currency in America in the early part of the century--is fiddle 'a suit', based on the rhyming phrase fiddle and flute.

Though rhyming slang is common in parts of England and Australia, it has never had much appeal in America. (Interested readers are referred to Mr. Lucky, a 1943 Cary Grant film featuring rhyming slang in an American context, though based on Australian use.) Apparently the only common Americanism based on rhyming slang is our raspberry, based on raspberry tart as rhyming slang for fart, in reference to the sound of the raspberry.

This raspberry is first recorded in a slang dictionary published in 1890; the actual rhyming slang phrase raspberry tart for 'fart' is found about the same time. Raspberry was used figuratively to mean 'any sign or expression of displeasure or derision' by the 1920s, and raspberry! was used as an interjection of displeasure in the 1910s.

(One of the values of rhyming slang for an etymologist is that it allows one to draw a connection between two otherwise unrelated terms just by finding a plausible rhyming phrase based on one of them. This has led to the suggestion that dukes 'the hands or fists' is based on Duke of York as rhyming slang for fork 'the fingers; (hence) the hands'. In our case, since raspberry tart is genuinely attested for fart at about the same time that raspberry first appears, we can conclude that it is genuine.)