The US film heart-throb Brad Pitt has replaced Eartha Kitt and the more venerable tom tit as a way of speaking furtively of one of our two commonest bodily functions.

In another leap forward for modern Cockney rhyming slang, the Tory foreign secretary of the 1990s, Douglas Hurd, has deposed Richard III, George III and the phrase my word as a synonym for turd. However, Mr Hurd himself may be dethroned in the future by William III, a usage already found in Australia. These reports and forecasts will emerge on Thursday from the Oxford Dictionary of Rhyming Slang. The dictionary, with 3,000 entries, brings the latest from the spawning grounds of an undercover language which now breeds almost as vigorously on television and in pubs as it once did in the criminal dens and street markets of 17th century London.

In some areas, this 200-year-old art form has stayed faithful to old favourites. The dictionary's section on "miscellaneous effluvia and eructions" lists few newcomers within the last 30 years.

These euphemisms remain constant. For one brand of eruction, we continue to use Billy Smart, D'Oyly Carte, horse and cart; for two others, Raquel Welch and Wyatt Earp. In the effluvia department, Jimmy Logie, a mid-20th century Arsenal player, still does duty for bogie.

But the book chronicles a torrent of 1990s newcomers. Among them are Emma Freuds for haemorrhoids; Gary Glitter, via a rhyming word, for anus; Melvyn Bragg for shag; Britney Spears for beers; Alan Whickers for knickers; Camilla Parker Bowles for Rolls; Claire Rayners for trainers; Selina Scott for a spot; and Steffi Graf for a laugh.

Cockney rhyming slang was first mentioned in an 1859 slang dictionary. It reported: "The cant is known in Seven Dials [a famous central London den of iniquity] as the Rhyming Slang, or the substitution of words and sentences which rhyme with other words intended to be kept secret."

The Oxford dictionary editor, John Ayto, says that as society grew more mobile people all over Britain heard Cockney slang, although after a high water mark in 1910, it seemed to decline. George Orwell wrote in 1933 that phrases like hit or miss for kiss and plates of meat for feet were almost extinct: "Perhaps all the words I have mentioned will have vanished in another 20 years."

Mr Ayto writes in his introduction to the dictionary that Orwell's forecast has proved too pessimistic: "Quite the reverse has happened. At the beginning of the 21st century, new rhyming slang is still being created. Thanks in large measure to the often exaggerated or caricatured use of these and other similar rhymes in television dramas and comedies featuring Cockney life - such as Minder and Only Fools and Horses, with the occasional support of such films as The Limey and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - many of these items have become fixtures in at least the passive vocabulary of all regions and classes.

"They are unlikely to be used, other than as a deliberate joke, but their meanings are widely understood".

Put on your Tonys, grab your rogan and go for a Germaine

rogan josh dosh

kiss me, Hardy/ Laurel and Hardy Bacardi

Laurel & holy (as in holy smoke) Bacardi and coke

Germaine Greer beer

Voda as in Vodafone soda

Britney Spears beers

Calvin Klein wine

Tony Blairs (or Tonys) flares

Claire Rayners trainers

Douglas Hurd turd

Emma Freuds haemorrhoids

Selina Scotts spots

Melvyn Bragg shag

Gary Glitter anus

Alan Whickers knickers

Camilla Parker Bowles rolls

Lee Marvin starving

Colonel Gadafy cafe

Jimmy Young bung

Raquel Welch belch

Michael Caine pain

Cilla Black back