Why is a watch called a kettle?
Question
I was watching Minder the other day and they repeatedly called a wristwatch a 'kettle'. Why is that?
Mick, Slough
Answer
** Definitive **
Answer
Name: Robert, Elephant and Castle
Qualification: My grandad is a cockney cab driver
Answer: It's cockney rhyming slang. It comes from kettle and hob - a fob watch.
Name: Terry, Edmonton
Qualification: I didn't have a kettle in those days
Answer: It comes from the phrase "a watched kettle never boils". They didn't have hobs in those days, they had Agas.
(James O'Brien: What rubbish! They had them in Dickensian times.)