Learn English – What does “they made bones” mean

meaningphrases

Context: an old (70+ years old) Londoner is being interviewed about his past as a lighterman on the River Thames and says the following:

Three big wharves there, they've flattened, all gone. One of them we called the stinker wharf. They made bones. It used to pen and ink when you went by there.

Webster's Third defines “to make bones” as “to show hesitation, uncertainty, or scruple,” but it doesn't seem to fit here. Partridge Slang says that “bone” could mean a marijuana/tobacco cigarette in the US; but it would be odd if an old Londoner used American slang terms.

Best Answer

I sent an email to The Company of Watermen and Lightermen in London and asked them if they knew what a "stinker wharf" was and what it might mean to say that "they made bones" there. Susan Fenwick replied

a stinker wharf would have been a tannery (there were many along the Thames) or perhaps a knackery (where they boiled down animal carcasses to make glue, bone meal, etc) and so called because it smelled bad.

So it seems most likely that he meant something like bone meal when he said "they made bones."

As a side note, "make bones" (in the US anyway) can mean making money, and "bones" can refer to dice or dominoes as well. I don't think either one of those fits here.

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