porky-pies (also porkies)
UK humorous rhyming slang

- Cockney rhyming slang for lies. "Porky pies" rhymes with "lies," and the expression is frequently shortened to just "porkies."

- Relating to untrue or deliberately deceptive statements.

Cambridge Dictionary, Oxford English Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

Cockney rhyming slang — the playful East London dialect in which a common word is swapped for a phrase that rhymes with it — has been part of London street life since at least the 1840s, and has since spread across the whole of British English.

The mechanism is simple: you replace the word you want to conceal with a two- or three-word rhyming phrase, then, for extra bafflement, drop the rhyming word entirely. "Apples and pears" becomes just "apples" (stairs). "Dog and bone" becomes just "dog" (phone). "Porky pies" rhymes with "lies" — and so, naturally, it became "porkies."

The pork pie itself is a venerable British institution. The famous hand-raised Melton Mowbray pork pie, with its distinctive bowed sides and uncured grey pork filling, has been produced in Leicestershire since the early 19th century and now holds protected geographical status under UK law — the edible equivalent of a vintage wine appellation.

Politicians, sports commentators and gossip columnists have been using it ever since — always with that slight wink, as if porky-pies itself is too enjoyable to replace with something as flat as "lies."

Helga & Paul Smith

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A SMALL SELECTION

The Cockney Rhyming Slang Dictionary by Geoff Tibballs contains over 1,700 entries,... here's a small selection of the most commonly used:

- Adam and Eve = believe ("Would you Adam and Eve it?")
- apples and pears = stairs ("Up the apples!")
- boat race = face ("Wipe that smile off your boat race.")
- bread and honey = money ("Have you got any bread?")
- dog and bone = phone ("Get off the dog.")
- plates of meat = feet ("My plates are killing me.")
- mince pies = eyes ("Keep your mince pies open.")
- butcher's hook = look ("Have a butcher's at this.")
- trouble and strife = wife ("My trouble's not going to like this.")
- rabbit and pork = talk ("Stop rabbiting on!")
- Brahms and Liszt = pissed (drunk) ("He came home completely Brahms.")
- tea leaf = thief ("Watch him — he's a tea leaf.")
- whistle and flute = suit ("Smart whistle you're wearing.")
- loaf of bread = head ("Use your loaf!")
- German bands = hands ("Wash those German bands!"
- and of course,...
- porky pies = lies ("He's telling porkies again.")

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SYNONYMS

baloney, bamboozlement, bare-faced lies, big fat fib, bull, bunkum, candy-coated truth, cock-and-bull story, confabulation, deceit, deception, disinformation, dissembling, distortion, double-talk, economising with the truth, eyewash, fabrication, fairy tale, falsehood, false testimony, falsification, fantasy, fib, fiction, flannel, flim-flam, flummery, fraudulent claim, hogwash, hokum, hoodwinking, hot air, howler, humbug, invention, malarkey, mendacity, misinformation, misrepresentation, misstatement, moonshine, myths, not-quite-the-truth, PORKY-PIES, poppycock, pretence, prevarication, spin, storytelling, stretching the truth, taradiddle, tall tale, terminological inexactitude, tosh, twaddle, untruth, waffle, whoppers

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

"Many people resort to PORKY-PIES — to protect others' feelings or to keep the peace."

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