REFILE-Modern trading killing off "barrow boy" market slang

(Clarifies description of trade in third paragraph)
By Nia Williams
LONDON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - "The Old Lady just bought
half a yard of cable and there are plenty of bids for Bill and
Ben."
Confused?
To most foreign exchange traders in London's "City"
financial district that sentence would make perfect sense: "The
Bank of England just bought half a billion British pounds
against the U.S. dollar and there's interest to buy the Japanese
yen."
A mixture of Cockney rhyming slang, market banter and
expressions picked up from horse racing bookmakers makes up the
basis for a financial lingua franca that may sound like nonsense
to most people, but has dominated the $4 trillion a day foreign
exchange (FX) market for decades up until recently.
Most often used for currencies, countries and numbers, this
financial market mumbo jumbo is starting to die out on the
modern trading floors of international banks.
The growth of electronic dealing over computer screens
rather than telephones or in person, a new generation of
university-educated traders, and the introduction of the single
European currency are all seen as reasons behind slang's demise.
"These terms get batted around a little bit but not as much
as they used to," said Graham Davidson, director of FX trading
at National Australia Bank in London, who said dealing rooms in
general are much quieter than they used to be.
"FX is much more electronic. Lots of the slang came about
through banter with the voice brokers, but that doesn't really
work with machines. A lot of day-to-day chit chat has faded
away, it's quite sad."
Some market players say the shift in the language of the
dealing rooms also highlights a wider shift in the demographic
of those doing the trading.
Many traders nowadays are recruited as university graduates
with top marks from Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and M.I.T.,
whereas 30 years ago aspiring youngsters with few, if any,
academic qualifications often started as back office clerks and
worked their way up to the trading floor.
Young London lads blessed with quick wits, common sense and
ability to juggle numbers were often prized above those with
academic laurels and went on to make fortunes as City traders.
"They were the 'barrow boys' coming off the market stalls.
It was more working class and with that came the language of the
street," said one trader, who used to work alongside some
dealers who also owned fruit and vegetable and flower stalls.
"In the early days of dealing rooms it was the City
institutions and especially the British banks where you heard
it. Now dealing rooms might be a bit more international and
slang is dying off a bit."

HALF A YARD OF CABLE
Some expressions have endured despite the changed dealing
room environment. "Yard", meaning billion comes from shortening
the French word for billion, which is "milliard".
"Cable" - one of the most-used slang terms - means the
British pound/U.S. dollar currency pair and refers to the
transatlantic telegraph cable that allowed prices to be
transmitted between the London and New York Exchanges.
The Bank of England gained its title from its address,
making it the "Old Lady" of Threadneedle Street, while the yen
is nicknamed the Bill and Ben - after a pair of puppets from a
1950s British children's TV show - simply because it rhymes.
Country nicknames tend to conform to stereotypes, some less
politically correct than others, while currencies were given
nicknames to help distinguish them easily.
Some traders said if countries did give up the single
European currency (euro) as a result of an on-going debt crisis
in Europe, some slang might re-emerge.
"We have talked about this a lot recently given the euro
zone situation, and thought about what it would be like to go
back to mark/Paris (deutschmark/French franc)", a London-based
trader said.
"These days there are far fewer names to worry about - the
euro is the euro. Whereas in years gone by you would have had to
worry about what the Estonian currency was even called."

Short selection of City slang

NUMBERS:
A SPANIARD 1 From the Spanish name Juan

A PRICKLY 2 A prickly pear
A CARPET 3 UK prisoners used to be allowed
carpet in their cells after 3 years
LADY GODIVA 5 Rhymes with fiver
AYRTON 10 Tenner rhymes with Ayrton
Senna, the late racing car driver
A BULLY 50 From the 50-point bullseye
on a dartboard
A MONKEY 500 The 500-Indian rupee note used to
have a picture of a monkey on it

CURRENCIES:
THE LOONIE CANADIAN DOLLAR A waterfowl named the
loon is depicted on
Canada's one-dollar coin
THE KIWI NZ DOLLAR National bird of New
Zealand
THE AUSSIE AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR
THE STOKKIE SWEDISH CROWN
THE NOKKIE NORWEGIAN CROWN

(Reporting by Nia Williams, editing by Paul Casciato)