Sir Winston Churchill once observed that Americans and therefore the British are ‘a standard individuals divided by a typical language’ …
Never was that as true as when describing the Cockneys.
You’ve actually heard their accent, created famous in everything from movies based on Dickens and George Bernard Shaw novels to laptop-generated gekkos telling real gekkos how to travel forth and sell car insurance. The Australian accent has its roots in Cockney culture, as they comprised a massive proportion of prisoners who were shipped there by the British once they viewed the Land Down Below as an ideal penal colony. Cockneys are the crafty characters from east London who admire those among their lot who will build a living simply by ‘ducking and diving, mate,’ that is their version of wheeling and dealing on a working-category level.
To be a ‘true’ Cockney, one should be born ‘within the sounds of the Bow bells.’ That’s a reference to the St Mary-le-Bow Church in the Cheapside district of London ‘proper.’ Their sound carries to a distance of approximately three miles, that defines the Cockney digs better than any zoning ordinance may do.
The term ‘Cockney’ initial appeared in the 1600s, but its actual origins are vague. Its initial known reference was connected to the Bow bells themselves in a amount satire that gave no reason for the association.
Some believe that ‘Cockney’ came from the second wave of Vikings, known as the Normans. These were descendants of the Northmen (’Norman’ was the French word for ‘Viking’) who settled in that part of northern France that came to be called Normandy when King Charles the Straightforward ceded it to the Vikings in exchange for ceasing their annual summer sackings of Paris. William the Conqueror was a Norman, and when he took England in 1066, a considerable quantity of French influence permeated the Anglican language.
Normans usually spoken London because the Land of Sugar Cake, or ‘Pais de Cocaigne,’ which was an allusion to what they saw as ‘the nice life’ that could be had by living there. Ultimately, this gave rise to a term for being spoiled, ‘cockering,’ and from there, Cockney was a brief derivative away.
Cockneys are famous for dropping the ‘H’ from the start of words and infamous within the mind of each grammar teacher for their coining the word ‘ain’t’ to replace the formal contraction for ‘is not.’ But, their most unique feature is their distinctive and catchy rhyming slang.
Legend has it that, throughout the course of their ‘ducking and diving,’ they might occasionally run afoul of the law. It was not uncommon for groups of Cockneys to be transported along to and from custody and courtroom, clearly in the corporate of policemen. So that they may speak brazenly to every alternative and deny the officers any ability to understand what they were saying, Cockneys devised a word/phrase association system that only the really-indoctinated may follow. This became known as their rhyming slang.
It’s easy, really. As an example:
Dog-and-bone = telephone
Apples-and-pears = stairs
Troubles-and-strife = wife
Thus, if a Cockney wanted you to go upstairs to tell his wife that there is a phone decision for her, he’d ask you to ‘take the apples and tell the bother she’s needed on the dog.’
As a general observation, their technique is {that the} second word of a rhyming phrase is that the link between the ‘translated’ word and the first word in the rhyming phrase, which becomes the word used when speaking. Sometimes, though, to emphasize the word, the entire phrase might be used. Therefore, if you’re completely exhausted and want to create a point of it, you would exclaim, ‘I am cream crackered!’ This is as a result of ‘knackered’ is an English term for being tired; cream crackers, incidenally, go well with tea.
There are even dictionaries for Cockney rhyming slang, from pocket versions tailored for tourists to online listings. 2 good sites for the latter are London Slang and Cockney Rhyming Slang. As with most slang, its vibrance is cause for constant enlargement and/or modification of terms, therefore the Cockney rhymes are always a piece in progress.
One note of caution: nothing sounds worse than a visitor attempting to over-Cockney their speech. If you’re thinking of touring an East End market or pub and want to pay your respects by using the native vernacular, be ready with some easy terms and deploy them with a smile solely when the occasion permits. Otherwise, not being positive if you are ‘taking the Mickey’ out of them or simply ignorant, the Cockneys can presumably view you as a ‘right Charley Ronce’ and flip away.
Providing ‘ponce’ is common English slang for a fool — which had its origins in describing a ‘fancy man,’ now called a ‘pimp’ in modern times — you may initial want a ‘British’ translator to tell you what word the Cockney was using. By that time, you will no doubt agree that Churchill wasn’t ‘alf Pete Tong (ie- wrong).
Of course, he didn’t even need to refer to another country in order to be right.
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