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Cockneys

Started by Bigfella, October 03, 2021, 01:01:07 PM

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Bigfella

One for the Londoners.  Listening to Mickey Flannagan who talks a lot about being a proper London lad.  He's from Bethnal Green.  Who are the 'real' cockneys - eastenders? south London? Is it anyone with a broad accent? Then there's Fulham and Shepherd's Bush which are in the west end but that's where Minder and Steptoe were set.  Being from Glasgow myself I can only guess about this.

Pink Gregory

Presumably Bow Bells still chime?

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

To be a true Cockney, you have to have been born within the sound of a mugging.

touchingcloth

Worst accent in the country, I reckon.

Gurke and Hare

Quote from: Pink Gregory on October 03, 2021, 01:01:42 PM
Presumably Bow Bells still chime?

Dick Whittington supposedly heard them from Highgate Hill, so the radius of "within the sound of Bow Bells" is massive and all the Londoners who well-actually you about being cockneys are probably cockneys whatever they say.

seepage

Quote from: touchingcloth on October 03, 2021, 01:16:36 PM
Worst accent in the country, I reckon.

No, South East Essex, closely followed by Salford or maybe Lichfield.

DrGreggles

Anyone south of Nottingham

imitationleather

I'm from Bow and so I am King Cockney.

WhoMe

Quote from: imitationleather on October 03, 2021, 01:45:13 PM
I'm from Bow and so I am King Cockney.

Would you say the younger generation still actively associate with 'being cockneys' round there? I sort of assign it to people of my Dad's generation (over 60) from Tower Hamlets/Hackney but anyone under that is just an east Londoner, not sure why.

Thursday

Cockneys aren't actually a thing anymore there's a few very very old people who were cockneys. But the rest of them all died out over the course of the mid to late 1900's. Some people might still have an accent similar to that of a Cockney, but nobody actually has the true spirit of a cockney. Anyone engaging in behavior similar to that of a cockney is basically just LARPING.

flotemysost

Quote from: WhoMe on October 03, 2021, 02:08:40 PM
Would you say the younger generation still actively associate with 'being cockneys' round there? I sort of assign it to people of my Dad's generation (over 60) from Tower Hamlets/Hackney but anyone under that is just an east Londoner, not sure why.

My dad's family are from Tottenham (though most of them moved to Essex) and the older ones (grandparents and great aunts and uncles) still talk about jellied eels and singing round the pyanner, and all my ancestors on that side seem to have had names like Ronnie and Etty and Clive.

I'm not sure how prevalent that kind of thing is these days but I imagine with some younger people there's still an amount of rose-tinted pride in claiming that heritage as your identity, no matter how tenuous - possibly helped by stuff like supporting a local football team, and all the mythology that comes with that, maybe? I went out with a guy from Penge for a while who would endlessly mock me for being posh, though he was hardly some FACKIN LANDAN CANT MATE and was probably about as middle class as I am.

Obviously not everyone feels that pride though, my mum grew up in post-war Shepherd's Bush and hated it and was really embarrassed about being from there.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: flotemysost on October 03, 2021, 02:22:54 PM
and all my ancestors on that side seem to have had names like Ronnie and Etty and Clive.

Great names imo, I reckon given the trend of giving babies Victorian names about 5-10 years ago, at some point we'll see names like Alan, Fred and Vera come back in vogue.

Elderly Sumo Prophecy

Danny Dyer is the greatest living Cockney.

Bigfella

Nice mixture of proper answers and funnies.  Keep it coming, lads and lasses.  Also wondering: if you are comparitively well-spoken, regardless of actually being posh or not, are you automatically barred from being considered Cockney? Ken Livingston et al.  Obligatory observation: it's not looking good for Jeremy 'Geezer' Corbyn.

Quote from: flotemysost on October 03, 2021, 02:22:54 PM

I'm not sure how prevalent that kind of thing is these days but I imagine with some younger people there's still an amount of rose-tinted pride in claiming that heritage as your identity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si4O26_HzF4&ab_channel=WiggahTV

flotemysost

Quote from: Bigfella on October 03, 2021, 02:55:37 PM
if you are comparitively well-spoken, regardless of actually being posh or not, are you automatically barred from being considered Cockney? Ken Livingston et al.  Obligatory observation: it's not looking good for Jeremy 'Geezer' Corbyn.

Both my parents sound markedly posher than the rest of their families and I think in both cases that was in part a conscious effort on their part to distance themselves from their backgrounds. I think this happens across the board though, one of my colleagues (in her 30s) is from Essex and she says that after years of working in London media industries she's trained herself to sound like she fits in, but she also feels guilty for succumbing to that and adding to the existing sea of RP-sounding voices.

beanheadmcginty

I'm from Kent, but I'm the youngest of my family. Everyone else I'm related to is from South East London. They are all called Brenda, Linda, Sue, Carol, Roy, Lesley and Dave. Literally every one of them. As if there was name rationing just after the war. My grandad was called Leslie and he named his daughter (my aunt) Lesley. She married a bloke called David. My mum is called Brenda and her brother David (everyone calls him Butch) married a woman called Brenda.

touchingcloth

Quote from: seepage on October 03, 2021, 01:34:26 PM
No, South East Essex, closely followed by Salford or maybe Lichfield.

John Cooper-Clarke disagrees.

Essex is basically the same as Cockney, especially where Essex mockneys are concerned. If I never have to hear the Jameses Oliver or Corden speak again that would be no great loss.

imitationleather

My grandad was a real cockney. A proper naughty geezer, he nearly went to prison for stealing lead off a church roof. The judge only let him get off because of his war record, gawd bless him.

Obviously, considering I post on here, people just assume I'm a well-spoken under-achiever from an indeterminate place in the south east.

Didn't many of the OG Cockneys relocate/get ethnically cleansed out to Essex over the years?

My grandmother's family were Canning Town born and bred but ended up spread over SE London and Kent.


imitationleather

My grandad moved to the coast once his lungs packed in too much to be able to chew on the Bethnal Green air.

Used to vote National Front, did Cockney Grandad Leather.

non capisco

I once hypnotised myself by repeatedly entering the following combination on this Danny Dyer soundboard and imagining a 4/4 beat behind it.

CAKE-O-BAKE-O
CAKE-O-BAKE-O
BONGO CHRIST
BONGO CHRIST
CAKE-O-BAKE-O
CAKE-O-BAKE-O
BONGO CHRIST
BONGO CHRIST
CAKE-O-BAKE-O
CAKE-O-BAKE-O
BONGO CHRIST
BONGO CHRIST
CAKE-O-BAKE-O
CAKE-O-BAKE-O
ABSOLUTELY TATERS

Try it yourself. After a few repetitions you'll feel like you've been abducted by "that mob up there".

Brundle-Fly

A proper old fashioned Cockney accent is great. My grandma was one. And no mistake...etc

non capisco

#23
If you're a cockney you have to start every song with "AAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW....." and a little pause, perhaps a second pause after the first word of the song as well.

For instance if Leonard Cohen had been a cockney it would have gone "AAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW.....IIIIIIIIT'S.......four in the morning, the end of December, I'm writing you now just to see if you're better."

Jerzy Bondov

Bow bells? Bow bell ends more like

Durance Vile

I'm from Kent as well, and anyone who hears me instantly thinks that I'm a cunt putting it on. But I can't help it. Once you've got the Chathamese accent there really is no getting rid of it.

An interesting thing about accents is where in the mouth they come from. Compare south-east London, Essex and Medway and then think of say, Michel Caine (front of the mouth though his teeth), Wilko Johnson (up through the nose) and Billy Childish (down through the froat). The sounds are the same, but coming from a different place.

On top of that, I've been away from England for thirty years and my accent is fossilised, without upspeak and all the other changes that have happened since I left.

I live in Berlin and hardly anyone under the age of about 40 speaks with a Berlin accent any more. The kids all speak the equivalent of RP if their parents moved here or the equivalent of London BAME, which over here is a kind of Turkish/Arabic thing. It's fascinating. Just like London, the Berlin accent is much more widely spoken in the areas around it.

flotemysost

Quote from: beanheadmcginty on October 03, 2021, 03:34:22 PM
They are all called Brenda, Linda, Sue, Carol, Roy, Lesley and Dave. Literally every one of them. As if there was name rationing just after the war. My grandad was called Leslie and he named his daughter (my aunt) Lesley. She married a bloke called David. My mum is called Brenda and her brother David (everyone calls him Butch) married a woman called Brenda.

Ha, that's great. I've got a Carol on my dad's side, she would have been born in the Sixties in Essex and it just seems like a really archetypal name for that time and place, can't imagine anyone naming a baby Carol these days. There's also a Daz on that side of the family (he is not a Pubes Daz, to my knowledge).

Quote from: Durance Vile on October 03, 2021, 08:51:12 PM
I live in Berlin and hardly anyone under the age of about 40 speaks with a Berlin accent any more. The kids all speak the equivalent of RP if their parents moved here or the equivalent of London BAME, which over here is a kind of Turkish/Arabic thing. It's fascinating. Just like London, the Berlin accent is much more widely spoken in the areas around it.

That's interesting. I'm guessing Berlin is similar to London and other big cities in that lots of people who live there aren't from there? I've got a mate from Berlin (in his twenties) who's quite fond of English urban slang circa 15-20 years ago, he's always saying stuff like "minging" and "innit".

flotemysost


My dad was born in Islington between the wars which is pushing the limit of being a Cockney but I always thought of him as being one until now. I think they moved around a bit and lived in West Ham too. He had the accent. One thing that stood out to me was that he seemed to support West Ham - who had once offered him a trial that he turned down because he said there was more money in being a door to door salesman - and Arsenal almost equally, although you had to notice his affection for Arsenal by his changing moods rather than by his ever admitting it. When he was younger he used to go to different grounds to watch games as a neutral, something that people can't really do now or not easily, which is a shame. Some of the names from that side of the family: Arthur, Rene, Den, Lil, Sid. He had the same name as his father, who called him Joe instead to avoid any confusion.

Trying to think of things he said and did that are interesting. His greeting was 'alright cocker' or 'alright cock'. He would say 'well done' (ll=w) instead of 'thanks', for example, if you made him a cup of tea. He called pudding 'sweet'. He remembered his dad's boxing, a vicar discreetly bringing them a basket of vegetables when they were hard up, and Lil and Sid singing 'Come in to the garden Maud' in the vibrato style and Lil under the table - that can't be right though - and he liked his mum's boiled sausages. He used to play "Tin Can Copper" with us, which would have been one of the games he played in London growing up.

gmoney

The person with the strongest Cockney accent I know was born and has spent all his life in Sunbury.