Electronic trading equipment is stifling trade talk, such as, “The Old Lady just bought half a yard of cable and there are plenty of bids for Bill and Ben,” Reuters said.

To most foreign exchange traders in London’s “City” financial district that sentence would make perfect sense: “The Bank of England just bought a half 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 the 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.

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.

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