Cockney accent

“ The reply will perhaps be, "But these h's are silent; the change of accent from the first syllable to the second neutralizes their aspiration." However true this may be in England, it is not at all true in America; hence we Americans should use a and not an before such h's until we decide to ape the Cockney mode of pronouncing them.
Errors are not unfrequently made by omitting to repeat the article in a sentence. It should always be repeated [Pg 8] when a noun or an adjective referring to a distinct thing is introduced; take, for example, the sentence, "He has a black and white horse." ”

“ Such being the universal condition of the world, we should rather be proud than otherwise, that, in England, we can boast of a secondary tribe, made, perhaps, by some of nature's journeymen, but that yet imitate humanity so respectably, so amiably, and so amusingly, as the Cockney must be admitted to do.
A Cockney is by locality very much what a tailor is by trade. Though a remote sub-multiple of a man, he is enterprising, indefatigable, cutting his way to his object through every thing with a ready tongue and a quick wit. ”

“ Cockney dialect is closely akin to Kentish, and abounds in venerable verbal relics: “The stranger enters, but he nonetheless pays his toll; he does not leave any mark on London, but London leaves an indelible stamp upon him. The children of the foreigner, the children of the Yorkshireman or Lancastrian, belong in speech neither to Yorkshire nor Lancashire, they become more Cockney than the Cockneys ”

“ There were fully a score of Americans in the crowd, the non-sailors being 'tramps royal,' the men whose 'mate is the wind that tramps the world.' They were all cheerful, facing things with the pluck which is their chief characteristic and which seems never to desert them, withal they were cursing the country with lurid metaphors quite refreshing after a month of unimaginative, monotonous Cockney swearing. The Cockney has one oath, and one oath only, the most indecent in the language, which he uses on any and every occasion. ”

“ In the Midlands, in Essex, in Middlesex, the dialect is vulgar; but it can hardly be said that it is so in Northumberland, in Yorkshire, in Cornwall, in Dorset. In Somerset it is unpleasant, but that is another thing from the vulgarity of the Cockney twang. It does not do to accentuate the brogue too much in a book that is for general readers. It puzzles, irritates them. What is needed is to hint the dialect rather than render it in full flavour. Such a hint is a necessary element in giving local colour. ”

“ The English easily come next to Americans as beggars, especially when England is represented by the Cockney. He will often attain his ends after failing in a cross-examination and discovered in a lie; for his witty excuses and peculiar manner of expression are not to be resisted by Americans. Even the Irish-Americans, who are so bitter against Englishmen, make an exception of a Cockney, because of his witty talk and his disinclination to be serious. ”

“ Simplicity is not vulgarity; but the looking to imitation or affectation of any sort for distinction is. A Cockney is a vulgar character, whose imagination cannot wander beyond the suburbs of the metropolis. An aristocrat, also, who is always thinking of the High Street, Edinburgh, is vulgar. ”

“ Now, the Cockney, who is said to have been a very foppish Cockney, was perfectly right in what he said, and therein manifested a knowledge of the English mind and character, and likewise of the modern English language, to which his catechist, who, it seems, was a distinguished member of the Scottish Bar, could lay no pretensions. The Cockney knew what the Lord of Session knew not—that the British public is gentility crazy—and he knew, moreover, that gentility and respectability are synonymous. No one in England is genteel or respectable that is ‘looked at,’ who is the victim of oppression. ”

“ Cockney youth, with fantastic picturesque tendencies as to dress, and crude love in the wagonettes, descended to the ground, alighting before the inn, and swarmed into the drinking-bar, thirsty with the swallowing of dust and much shouting, buxom beauty hanging upon their arms with proud gaze boldly cast upon their noisy lords from under the heavy hair that shaded their frankly vulgar eyes, and with ear-racking laughings from their full red lips to greet all their swaggering gentlemen’s uttermost ribaldries. ”

“ Should he by chance be found there, rest assured it is in some mongrel state: some Britisher with the ravishing strain of the hilarious, inconsequential, romantic Irish; or the Odyssean strain of the Italian cavalier or Spanish hidalgo’s blood pulsing in his veins. Though, stay—there was one, by name Bill Grimes, a representative of the much-abused Cockney.
Men have toiled over the inscrutable wonders of Cockneyism. The short clay pipe, the black teeth, the perky shuffle of vile impertinence and blasphemous oaths have bedecked many a novelist’s pages with inky crime. ”

“ It is, of course, unfair to suggest that a parochial self-satisfaction underlies this utilization of personal experience as the sole test of linguistic propriety; but the procedure is amusingly illogical.
The cockney has no monopoly of good English if even he has his full portion. ”

“ Now I hold this Frenchman to be quite a genius in his way. He sees the leading foible of the people with whom he has to deal, and humours them to the top of their bent. Many a cadaverous Cockney has he dismissed from his apartment exulting and frolicsome in spirit, and convinced in his inmost soul that he has now some tangible connexion with the aristocracy, and may possibly be able to persuade some country chambermaid that he is the scion of a noble house. ”

“ To tell the truth, the wit of, I will not say, an Englishman, but a Cockney, is not within the reach of the Scot. Jokes, play upon words, and bantering are not in his line. A pun will floor him completely; but I hope to be able to prove, by means of a few anecdotes, that Donald has real wit, and humour above all—humour of the light, subtle kind, that would pass by a Cockney without making the least impression.
I do not wish to say that there is more intelligence in Scotland than in England; but I can in all security say there is more intellectuality. ”

“ This trip was a memorable one, and no doubt Cockney made the best haul of his life. We were together in Liverpool, Cockney, Donovan and myself, 116 and as usual drinking. A stranger, hearing by our conversation that we hailed from America, invited us to drink; and in the course of conversation expressed a regret that he was out of work, and had no means of visiting America. "Nothing is easier," said Cockney, "if you place yourself unreservedly in our hands. ”

“ In cockney speech there is a distinct tendency to make the closure so far forward that the [k, g] are perceptibly modified. (This pronunciation is suggested by the spelling gyarden, kyind, employed by those who try to represent cockney speech.) The "palatalizing" tendency is not to be encouraged; a more effective [k] is produced by distinctly backward articulation. Slight variations in the place of closure due to the place of articulation of neighbouring sounds in a word are inevitable. ”

“ The illiterate do not quote melodrama; melodrama quotes them.
Again and again this has been proved in London police-courts. When the emotions are roused, the Cockney does not pick his words and alight carefully on something he heard at the theatre last week; nor does he become sullen and abashed. He becomes violently vocal. He speaks out of himself. Although he seldom enters a church, the grip of the church is so tightly upon him that you may, as it were, see its knuckles standing in white relief when he speaks of solemn affairs. ”

“ Jerry Sneak and Major Sturgeon are, in their line, the two most perfect delineations of which the minor British drama can boast. There is no mistaking their identity. They speak the genuine, unadulterated vulgar tongue of the City. Their sentiments are cockney; their meanness and their bluster, their pompous self-conceit and abject humility, are cockney; they are cockney all over from the crown of the head to the sole of the shoe. ”

“ As dawn breaks they reach the sandy beach, and a few shots ring out from the distant Fort of Fas—but no one cares. Each and all are looking amazedly at the grotesque appearance of the line—silent, miserable figures, boots wagging round their necks, shorts rolled as high as possible, while their frozen fingers obediently cling to rifles and ammunition.
It is too much for one soul, and a Cockney voice calls out: "'Ere, wot price this fer Margate?" ”

“ All the same, if I were to attempt to represent current "smart" cockney speech as I have attempted to represent Drinkwater's, without the niceties of Mr. Sweet's Romic alphabets, I am afraid I should often have to write dahn tahn and cowcow as being at least nearer to the actual sound than down town and cocoa. And this would give such offence that I should have to leave the country; for nothing annoys a native speaker of English more than a faithful setting down in phonetic spelling of the sounds he utters. ”

“ It only shows that “some folks are no ill to please.” “The Cockney must have his puns and small jokes,” says Max O’Rell. “On the stage he delights in jigs, and to really please him the best of actors have to become rivals of the mountebanks at a fair. A hornpipe delights his heart. An actor who, for an hour together, pretends not to be able to keep on his hat, sends him into the seventh heaven of delight. Such performances make the Scotch smile—but with pity. The Scotsman has no wit of this sort. In the matter of wit he is an epicure, and only appreciates dainty food.” ”

“ We can weep together over the pathos of the poor Yorkshireman, whose county has never produced some humour not intelligible to the rest of the world. And we can smile together when he says that somebody or other is "not even" a Cockney humourist like Samuel Johnson or Charles Lamb. It is surely sufficiently obvious that all the best humour that exists in our language is Cockney humour. Chaucer was a Cockney; he had his house close to the Abbey. Dickens was a Cockney; he said he could not think without the London streets. ”

“ Well is it when we can amuse ourselves with such trifles and without injury to others! This class of character, which the Spectator has immortalised in the person of Will Wimble, is still common among younger brothers and gentlemen of retired incomes in town or country. The Cockney character is of our English growth, as this intimates a feverish fidgety delight in rural sights and sounds, and a longing wish, after the turmoil and confinement of a city-life, to transport one’s-self to the freedom and breathing sweetness of a country retreat. ”

“ The Cockney mind is keenly alive to humour, and when a racy Irishwoman gets fairly started on a favourite subject, the delicious contradictions of her denunciations are hard to beat! That laughter saved the situation, and the domestic wheels began to move. ”

“ MISTAKES ABOUT SCOTLAND
(Contributed by a Converted Cockney)
It is a mistake to believe that every Scotchman, when he goes to Edinburgh, immediately walks down Princes Street clad in the ancient costume of the Highlanders.
It is a mistake to believe that the pièce de résistance at every Scotch dinner-party is a haggis.
It is a mistake to believe that a Scotchman does not enjoy a joke every bit as much as an Englishman.
It is a mistake to believe that a Scotch Sabbath in the country is a whit more triste than an English Sunday in the provinces. ”

“ As his ancestors leaving the shores of Holland and Ireland, as millions of men and women had done with the Old World dwindling away in the distance, he looked towards America for the answer to existence.
Ten days after his admission he was allowed to leave the hospital for his rooms in St. James's Square.
He took his leave of the little group who had been his companions for the time—the little Cockney with his incessant exuberance; the French-Canadian, picturesque of language and imagination; the one remaining Australian, vigorous of thought and forceful of temperament ”

“ The ostler knocked him down.
The cockney youth got up again and lashed out with his hands—London breeds courage when it is not cowardice, to the full pitch; every cockney is a potential hero when he is not a whining thief—he was knocked down again. ”

“ But not the piece of shrapnel that came out when he withdrew his hand from inside his tunic!
"The only thing that ever I had sent me—and that from Jerry!" says Jack. "We was always taught to love our enemies!"
They sure loved us, for shortly after I received my little gift of love, which put me to by-by for several months. But that Cockney lad from East London never grumbled at his hard lot. He looked at me, his corporal, and no wonder he clung round my neck, for he has told me since the war that he was only sixteen then. A brave lad!—D. C. Maskell (late 20th Battn. Middlesex Regt.) ”

“ Before going up the line we were stationed at Etaples, and were rather proud of our cook-house, but one day the colonel told the sergeant-major that he had heard some of the most unparliamentary language he had ever heard in his life emanating from the cook-house.
The sergeant-major immediately called at the cook-house to find out the cause of the trouble, but our Cockney cook was very indignant. "What, me Lord Mayor? [slang for 'swear'] . No one's ever 'eard me Lord Mayor." ”

“ In short, I suspect that Cockney things have become commonplace because there has been so long lacking in them a certain savour of sacrifice and peril, which there has been in the nursery tale, for all its innocence, and which there has been in the Parisian street, for all its iniquity. ”