Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 November 28

= November 28 =

Fruit saying
What is meaning of phrase "grow a pear"? My neighbour is Cockaney and told this to me last week but I cannot see it is a Cockaney rhyme slang. Have no garden or trees, so this is difficult for me. It is from London song maybe. 217.38.77.132 (talk) 12:17, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The normal phrase is "grow a pair", expressing the speaker's belief that the person addressed is not behaving in an appropriately virile manner. Tevildo (talk) 13:26, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * There's two possibilities I can think of. There's a famous bit of Cockney rhyming slang: " apples and pears " for "stairs".  However, if one accounts for homophones to be the source of your misunderstanding, the phrase you are mishearing is most likely" grow a pair ", as in a pair of testicles.  It's a common exhortation said to someone who is being cowardly.  Look it up at Urban Dictionary.-- Jayron 32 13:30, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed; see "grow a pair". Alansplodge (talk) 16:41, 28 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I'll note in passing that Cockney rhyming slang typically omits the word that rhymes with the 'real' word: stairs → apples and pears → apples. To decipher pears as C.r.s., we'd have to find a word commonly paired with pears. —Tamfang (talk) 09:13, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Definitely not cockney slang, it is a colloquialism. Cockney slang would have the rhyming elememt with the rhyming word omitted like, for example "sausage roll" for "troll" but only "sausage" would be used Richard Avery (talk) 15:37, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I wish I had said that. —Tamfang (talk) 09:29, 4 December 2015 (UTC)