Slang meaning of ELMO. Online slang ELMO

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joey

much debate about this: According to my information (1894 Brewer, and the modern Cassell's, Oxford, Morton, and various other sources) Joey was originally, from 1835 or 1836 a silver fourpenny piece called a groat (Brewer is firm about this), and this meaning subsequently transferred to the silver threepenny piece (Cassell's, Oxford, and Morton). I'm convinced these were the principal and most common usages of the Joey coin slang. Cassell's says Joey was also used for the brass-nickel threepenny bit, which was introduced in 1937, although as a child in South London the 1960s I cannot remember the threepenny bit ever being called a Joey, and neither can my Mum or Dad, who both say a Joey in London was a silver threepence and nothing else (although they'd be too young to remember groats...). I'm informed however (ack Stuart Taylor, Dec 2006) that Joey was indeed slang for the brass-nickel threepenny bit among children of the Worcester area in the period up to decimalisation in 1971, so as ever, slang is subject to regional variation. I personally feel (and think I recall) there was some transference of the Joey slang to the sixpence (tanner) some time after the silver threepenny coin changed to the brass threepenny bit (which was during the 1930-40s), and this would have been understandable because the silver sixpence was similar to the silver threepence, albeit slightly larger. There is also a view that Joey transferred from the threepenny bit to the sixpence when the latter became a more usual minimum fare in London taxi-cabs. So although the fourpenny groat and the silver threepenny coin arguably lay the major claim to the Joey title, usage also seems to have extended to later coins, notably the silver sixpence (tanner) and the brass-nickel threepenny bit. The Joey slang word seems reasonably certainly to have been named after the politician Joseph Hume (1777-1855), who advocated successfully that the fourpenny groat be reintroduced, which it was in 1835 or 1836, chiefly to foil London cab drivers (horse driven ones in those days) in their practice of pretending not to have change, with the intention of extorting a bigger tip, particularly when given two shillings for a two-mile fare, which at the time cost one shilling and eight-pence. The re-introduction of the groat thus enabled many customers to pay the exact fare, and so the cab drivers used the term Joey as a derisory reference for the fourpenny groats.