h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

oh dear Jack, watch yerself there!



hi Mina, i see you are taking a stand on this, and to an extent i can undertand why; there is a misconception of what 'cockney' means involved here.

my problem remains that i need to refer to the widely recognised accent that many people mistakenly think of as 'cockney'...

I shall have to mention it early on and say something like 'the working class London accent often (mistakenly) referred to as 'cockney' by native English-speakers all over the uk.'

whaddaya think to that as a compromise...

I think it's a good compromise - although I think that Jack is in London as well, so there might be fisticuffs. cockney is more likely to be full of slang - at a pinch, think Frank from Eastenders, or Pete Beale if your memory is longer - calling people 'treacle' and using rhyming slang - although only the first half, so no-one has a bloody clue what's going on.

now that you put it like that, though, some might say that estuary English is spoken in 'a cockney accent' - without implying any local vocab, mannerisms etc... .

i'll try to make it clear that there is a difference, anyway.

Estuary English is just rough sounding. Almost with a twang of strine in it, innit?

I'd even say it's an ugly sound.

Yooo park yaw ca-aa-ah inner garidge.

Sorry for coming to this one rather late in the game Spiff. I've tried to follow the highbrow discussion in the thread, and I've got a few comments of my own.

'Cockney' and 'East London' are definately not the same (speaking as a long-time resident of and worker in they parts, rather than a scholar). Estuary English has developed from East London English, which has developed from Cockney. This is what I heard a (what I would call) Cockney bus conductor say to someone who asked what would happen if the bus (which was making some odd noises) broke down - "Werw, yorora'agi'orp" Any idea what that might mean?

Another bloke who I would consider Cockney told me that he was going to himself "A noo paira trahsis." EE is much more whiney, and that I believe, has always been its most outstanding characteristic. It's almost like that Monty Python sketch - whilst Cockney is a good, woody accent, EE is all tinny I'm not sure if I can find a way of writing down how to say 'trahsis' in EE. If a Cockney would say 'abaht', an EE speaker would say something like 'abayot'. There's almost a diphthong in there. Think Ken Livingstone, think south London.

Why is glottalising the t in city beyond EE? If you mean that it goes beyond EE into Cockney or East London, then I'd agree with you. I always drop the t in city. One word I've never heard it dropped in though is teatime.

"Similarly it is common not to pronounce the /j/ after the /s/ of "assume", "consume", "presume", "pursuit" or "suit(able)""

I would pronounce those words ashume, conshume, prezhyoom, purshoot, which all contain an element of 'y'.

Mina, I'm in Beijing - you can't catch me!

Is it the perceptions of the label 'Cockney' that you is having a problem with? OK, in Britain it has lots of associations and is often considered 'ugly'. But ask eg an American what they think of it, and they may well prefer it to other accents, RP even.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with Cockney - it can grate sometimes, but it can also be straightforward and friendly.

London's just a tiny dot on the map to me right now - that may be why the distinctions seem diminished. But if EE did originate from an East London accent (ie Essex London), it's obviously important to put that in.

hi all,

thanks for some great feedback!

i'm not sure, Jack, that your making the right assumptions here...

i suspect that there is a certain pride of being a 'true' cockney involved, that would regard EstEng as an 'imposter'...

see Gosho's comments about cockney being a 'good, woody' accent VS EE as a 'cardboard, tinny' one...

And Mina too, i think, is saying - "well, what you are calling cockney is *not* cockney! It may be a 'London' accent but it is not a 'cockney' accent."

I see all this as being in 'defense' of the one true 'cockneyism'.

btw, Gosho, in case you *wiwiwo'* an answer - I imagine your con-duck-tour was attempting to inform his passengers that in the eventuality of any technico-mechanical difficulties it would be his unfortunate duty respectfully to insist that each and every one of them alight and find alternative means of locomotion.

Zaddit?

Spiffy! Can this go in yet? It's very good - a lovely complement to the RP entry.

I've had a nice chat with my Dad about this, and he told me that cockney isn't native to London, and it's not an accent at all. It's simply the word describing the rhyming slang that people used to baffle other people. Apparently it came from all over England.

The East London accent apparently comes from the Jews and other immigrants.

Sorry for getting Jack's location wrong.

"I imagine your con-duck-tour was attempting to inform his passengers that in the eventuality of any technico-mechanical difficulties it would be his unfortunate duty respectfully to insist that each and every one of them alight and find alternative means of locomotion."



Thanks Spiff, I needed that - it's been a tough couple of weeks

I know there a lot of people who want to get this picked already, but I think there may still be more to add. What about the influence of West Indian and Indian (Ali G f'rinstance) speech for instance, or is that too much of a recent thing. Are we talking strictly about 80's EE?

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I think it's been said that Jude Law is definitely EE. But compared to Michael Elphick, who really is EE (and who I will miss), Jude is a lisce of posh. EE clearly covers a lot of ground.

Trout.

How would you describe Alf Garnett's accent?

Upton Park

Congrats on getting this picked.

Alright Professor 'Iggins I meant more broadly than that. Is he Cockney or East London?

From where I sit, he's Cockney. But some pearly queen might have different ideas and well they might.

The point I'm trying to make is that cockney, it seems, is cultural, especially to those who really do speak cockney, and geographically specific by definition.

Meanwhile, Estuary English is vast, spanning all the ugliness between Alf Garnett, you, me, Michael Elphick, and Jude Law.

*gasp*

er... I've been barred all pm, looking in through the window feeling forlorn...

glad to see this has been picked, although i'm not sure it's really quite finished (i'm making a habit of this!)

Upton Park, eh...

thinking about these comments about different people has made me think that the best way to illustrate the accent is by using some of the examples in this thread. Famous EE-speakers.

course, one of the problems is that there is quite a wide gap between our 'posh EE' and the 'grittiest' variety.

gotta go,
cya
spiff