The Scottish Mail on Sunday - You
The new cockneys
I hope you’ve remembered it’s The Modern Cockney Festival this month (1-31 March). Would you Adam and Eve it? I forgot.
That’s disappointing.
But then again, I’m not cockney.
We are all cockneys. Are we?
Only the culturally stunted subscribe to that outmoded ‘born within the sound of Bow Bells’ stereotype.
So, remind me, where are cockneys born?
I’ve already told you: everywhere.
In which case, their defining characteristics would be…
A set of shared values including, reports The Times, ‘defiance, resourcefulness and ’avin’ a larf’.
Where’s The Times getting this from?
The Cockney Blueprint. I didn’t know there was a handbook.
Well, there is: newly produced by a community partnership called Cockney Cultures in conjunction with the University of Warwick.
So, these cockneys…
Just so you know: that’s not the preferred terminology. Sorry?
We prefer ‘cockney diaspora’ or ‘wider cockneydom’.
But you aren’t a member of the wider cockneydom either.
We’re all members of the wider cockneydom. I do wish you’d listen.
THEIR SHARED VALUES? ‘DEFIANCE AND ’AVIN’ A LARF’
OK, so Bow Bells doesn’t come into it any more?
‘We believe Bow Bells is heard not through the ears but through the heart,’ says Cockney Cultures.
I’m finding this rather confusing.
Maybe comedian Arthur Smith can help. He says a cockney is a ‘non-posh Londoner’.
And by ‘posh’ he means..?
Not part of the cockneydom. You’re doing my loaf in. What did Times readers make of the story?
‘What a load of old pony and trap’, opined
Mr Trevor Kappes.
He makes a strong point.
‘What a bunch of Jeremys’ added Mr H Morgan. What’s a Jeremy?
Never mind. It’s not authentic rhyming slang and you can’t reduce cockneys to an accent. Tiktok can.
Sorry?
Videos including those on how to speak like a cockney have amassed 101 million views. Maybe it will enhance your membership of the cockney club.
‘Diaspora’.
That’s it. Tiktok advises finishing all observations with the phrase ‘innit?’
Anything else?
Don’t pronounce the ‘t’ in the middle of words and replace ‘th’ with ‘f’ at the beginning of a word or ‘v’ if it’s in the middle of a word.
Well, really. You’re reducing a complex culture to something that sounds like the latest offering from Guy Ritchie. You mean like The Gentlemen?
What’s that?
The latest offering from Guy Ritchie – on Netflix now.
Please don’t tell me it’s geezers, drugs and the criminal underworld.
It’s geezers, drugs and the criminal underworld.
Or that it stars Ray Winstone. It stars Ray Winstone.
What about Vinnie Jones? Him, too.
This link between cockney accents and crime is just what Dr Strelluf is warning against. Dr who?
No, Dr Strelluf: the sociolinguist who co-authored The Cockney Blueprint and who points out that accents can ‘invoke social prejudice and discrimination.’ I’m not sure Vinnie approaches his roles from a sociolinguistic angle. Anyway, you were talking March’s cockney festival.
I was. Co-founder Andy Green told The Evening Standard it represents ‘a wake-up call to… the cockney diaspora’.
And, I read, the celebrations kicked off with ‘Speak Cockney Day’ on 3 March – or, as you might call it, the ‘fird of the fird’.
Ah, so you do know something about modern cockneys.
As does Times reader Brendan Corrigan, who offered his thoughts on their mastery of current weights and measures.
What did Corrigan say? ‘Someone’s just 1.27 centimetred my joke about cockneys and the metric system.’