Cockney cross words over cryptic scooby | Letters

Rhyming slang is designed to be impenetrable by the uninitiate. A person with 'a lot of bottle' might not be brave at all (but might be Kim Kardashian)

Your crossword compiler "Brendan" (Cryptic No 26,898, 31 May) predicates a clue on the idea that "bottle" is cockney slang for courage: "Bottle, or something Dutchman can get from one (7)". In fact, just as "loaf" (loaf of bread) means head, as in "use your loaf", so "bottle" refers to something that rhymes only when you complete the phrase. The phrase in this case is "bottle and glass" and it rhymes with, er, arse. Cockneys wishing to avoid the Chaucerian vulgarity call an arse an "Aris". This is not a misspelling of arse, like the American "ass", but rhyming slang. Aris is short for Aristotle; Aristotle = bottle; bottle and glass = arse.

So "to lose your bottle" means to lose your arse or, vernacularly, to shit yourself. Someone who loses her bottle displays cowardice.