Treacle tart

How do people say it?

• She is my treacle tart.Listen
• Morning, treacle.Listen

What should I know?

Treacle tart is where rhyming slang shows its soft side. Say TREE-kuhl TART, with the stress on treacle.

The plain word is sweetheart. The rhyming phrase is treacle tart.

The short form people actually say is treacle, which drops the word that rhymes. Morning, treacle is the sentence to learn first: it is warm and clearly fond.

This rhyme is safe because it is love. It is a pet name, a fond word for someone the speaker likes.

It suits anyone you love, in most places. You would not write it in a letter to the bank, treacle is for family and friends.

Learners should know that treacle is a name for a person, not a thing. She is my treacle tart names someone loved; it does not describe pudding, however sweet. When you can hear the rhyme inside the phrase without thinking, the other phrases on the decoder page will start to unpack the same way.

Try it on the decoder's sister pages next. Kettle is another rhyme, and dipstick shows the other end of the scale: a word to understand and not to say.

The list below the decoder holds every phrase, so read a few rows and notice how the short forms fall. Then say morning, treacle to someone you love, and hear how London says it back.

What else can I say?

• Kettle and hob Watch. Hob rhymes with fob, the old word for a pocket watch on a chain; kettle is the short form.
• Dipstick A fool. British slang, not a true rhyme: the word comes from the oil dipstick, and it stings.