Devin Taylor

English 4901

Dr. Shonk

12 December 2008

Something British: Cockneyisms, Britishisms, and Vulgarisms

One of the lowliest dialects on England's dialect totem pole is Cockney, as it is “the

underprivileged slum cousin of 'good' English” (Ayres 127) in the manner that few outside of its

spectrum of speakers understand it. Once considered to be the dialect of all of London (Bolton 222),

Cockney is now often associated with the lower classes and people with poor education. It has gone

through a sort of pejoration as many began to deem it improper, but that has not stopped it from being

widely used in British comedy or in American acting schools. The Brits are known for their quirky

terms sometimes called Britishisms and, of course, for the hidden vulgarity of these terms in

conversations. Cockney doesn't fall short for those seeking good laugh at England's finest dialect, as it

includes many differences in pronunciation than those in the Received Pronunciation spoken by Queen

Elizabeth II, but it is this phonology and insertion of vulgarisms only meant to be heard when one's

mother is not around that keep it in the spotlight and fresh on the minds of those wishing to hear a solid

British dialect or to enjoy a good bit of humor.

Cockney and Its -isms

Cockney is said to be an allusion straight from a medieval rhyme “which by some fanciful

connection with London's effeminacy and luxuriousness came to be applied to its genuine citizens”

(Bolton 222), though there is no textual evidence that London is even the fictitious place. Cockney is

the rough accent one hears when one meets an underpaid worker shuffling along waste at the tube

wishing it is almost time to 'urry 'ome for dinner. It is the dialect of Eliza Doolittle, a reformed flower

girl in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. But most importantly, it seems to be at the heart of what a

foreigner wants to experience while visiting England for the first time. After all, the trip was not worth

it if no one had been called a “bloomin' arse,” right? Cockney is quite simply that quintessential accent

(or dialect, for those counting) that sums up a cranky, liquored-up Londoner.

Reginald Pelham Bolton, a native speaker of Cockney, noted the lack of aspiration placed on

words by his fellow dialect speakers but more importantly the aspiration used by the rest of English

who are perceived to speak some semblance of a proper language. Not without a bit of humor did he

propose that the Romans may have been at fault for:

indelibly fixing their carelessness of aspiration upon the British speech, yet from the fact

that the language generally has grown up full of aspirates, in spite of the equally patent

fact that two thirds of the population of England ignore and misplace them, they can

scarcely be credited with the result. (Bolton 225)

The speakers of Cockney were completely shortchanged in the fact that they were left out of the

proverbial aspiration pool, and they become quite a specimen for linguists asking them to speak a

sentence full of the letter h. What they lack in aspirates, however, is made up in an almost

hypercorrection when they insert one in front of words like “heasy” or “hirritation.” This helps to

evoke confusion at a baptism when the priest asks if the baby has any other names but Robert. No, he

has “'Robert, h'only,' [his mother] answered. 'Robert Honly, I baptize thee,' etc., proceeded the

clergyman” (Bolton 225-226).

Not only does a Cockney speaker have fault when it comes to the aspiration autocrat, but the

glottal nasal guru could start a row when he hears the g's being dropped off the ends of words to make a

person goin', rather than going, to the supermarket (Bolton 225). This feature is quite common in

America, but for one to carry it in England makes one low indeed; after all, pronunciation is the one

and only marker to determine a person's class and quality of education. It is this kind of thinking that

has left Cockney in a very poor and undeserved position, because it has such a lilting tune to

desensitized ears. Even the “ah—ah--ah--ow--ow--oo!” like the one so famously crooned by Ms.

Doolittle in Pygmalion is lovable (Shaw II). Prescriptive grammarians might cringe, though, when the

Cockney happens to switch v's with w's (Kokeritz 192) or inserts a svarabhakti, otherwise known as an

extra vowel between consonants (Algeo 330), like in donikey, but really they're only trying to make up

for everything else lacking in their, well, lacking speech. The following passage helps to sum up many

problems faced in Cockney:

Mr. Spriggings vas saying t'other day, as how he verily did think that weal vas better

eating than wenson; to be sure weal is wery good of the kind; but Mr Spriggings, says I,

gimme wenson [...] I vas wastly fond of wenson, for after all now, what can be more

betterer or more fitterer, eh? [...] He might as well say that wice ought to be walued

above wirtue, or that wawnuts can be pickled vithout winegar. (Kokeritz 190-191)

The switching of the consonants v and w is highly prevalent and utterly confusing as this young

gentleman tries to relate his fondness for wenson. The middle syllable has been dropped out of

venison, but an extra -er is added in the use of double comparatives like in betterer. The l's seemingly

fall out of words like walnut to make wawnut, with other examples being walk and talk to make tawk

and wawk. There is also the insertion of gimme, a presently common word used in America, which

was being used early on in Cockney. Give and me were pushed together, and the v subsequently gave

way to an m. Cockneys also include the dropping off of the r's in words like regard where a flat a

forms to make regaad (Kokeritz 193-194).

Britishisms and Vulgarisms

One of the most exciting things to hear a Londoner shout is “bloody this!” and “bloody that!”

In fact, it's just as sensational to hear any word not commonly used in the everyday speech of

Americans. Though the Cockneys do get blamed for inserting a large portion of vocalized filth into the

Queen's good English, they, if tales be true, have come up with some remarkable terms like bloomin',

bleedin', and bugger. Other Britishisms included, but not without a parental advisory warning, are:

BRITISH AMERICAN

Balls to the wall Hurry up

Face like a bag of spanners Ugly

Fag Cigarette

Galloping knob-rot Severe, uncontrollable venereal disease

Jesus creepers Sandals

Keen as mustard Very enthusiastic, eager

Lay one on To hit someone

Nose-bag Food or meal

Undercrackers Underwear

Wallies False teeth

Most of the words and phrases seem to have evolved out of no particular meaning, and they have

nothing to do with the original definitions of the words that comprise them. Nose-bag, does however,

have a bit of rationality in it, because it apparently comes from the bag with which horses were fed

(Duckworth). But it will be a fine day indeed when a rotting knob gallops and crackers are worn as

underwear. Jesus might even adopt the term creepers for his fashionable Birkenstocks as he balls to

the wall to Mass.

Many terms are crossing national boundaries in today's society with inventions like the internet

and television. They provide a way for people with differences in a common language to come

together and learn another culture's colloquialisms. Even standardized spelling is changing as an

American student wonders if it is spelled judgment or judgement. Grammar has had little change

between the different English-speaking countries of the world, so it is still possible for an Australian to

understand what a Canadian says, providing the use of slang is at a minimum (Svartvik 152-156). This

is all due to the transatlantic drift, which cause “the British [to so busily borrow] linguistically from the

Americans that what was originally felt to be an Americanism has become thoroughly at home in

Britain” (157). For example, the following is a list of British words and their now accepted

counterparts in the American style:

BRITISH AMERICAN

Wireless Radio

Season ticket holder Commuter

American words without a complementary British one are also making it into everyday British use like:

bucks, bonehead, jerk, movie, guys, and cool (158). There have been some instances, though, where

Britishisms have not made it into American society. The following chart lists the changes made by

American publishers of J.K. Rowling's famous Harry Potter series about a boy in wizarding school in

Britain:

BRITISH AMERICAN

At weekends On weekends

Barking Off his rocker

Bins Trash-cans

Bit rich coming from you You should talk

Cooker Stove

Father Christmas Santa Claus

Queuing Lining up

Row Fight

Torch Flashlight

Wonky Crooked

Looking at Rowling's series is a great way to see Britishisms, even though a majority of them were

changed while trying to “make [the] books more intelligible to a young American readership.” There is

still an essence of Britishness in the way the publishers left some of her sentences worded, though

syntax is said to rarely signify a dialect (161-163).

Social Distinction

What poses an interesting question, though, is why the British make such a distinction between

classes based on dialects or the inability or disagreeance to speak in Received Pronunciation. It can be

seen in novels like Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and Hard Times by Charles Dickens. Brontë's

Heathcliff is first secluded from his adoptive family by his inability to communicate with them, and

then Dickens' character Mr. Sleary is given a lisp which later allows for his intentions to be understated

by the novel's major characters. He may be a leader of a traveling circus, but it seems that a primary

reason why he is not taken as seriously as he should be until the end of the novel is because of his

humorous lisp.

Even “[t]o be a middle-class student just [twenty] years ago carried such a social stigma that

many graduates in their [forties] recall faking a proletarian accent for their entire university education”

(Aitkenhead) to fit in. This stigma certainly does not translate into America, where there is less stress

placed on what class a person falls into. Perhaps the distinction comes from the fight to leave England

and its traditions behind when the Pilgrims sailed to the New World to practice their own religion.

Over the centuries, America has been a refuge for those seeking shelter from rapacious rulers in

countries with little means. Societies that have an uneven split in wealth tend to have more lower class

people, and the upper classes are characterized by how much money the family has. Those who were

coming to America in those difficult times were in the same situation as their fellow travelers, and

because of this, they fell into a special bond that drove out most distinctions of class.

In Accents of English I, author J.C. Wells attempts to answer the question of social distinction

based on dialects, but he only comes to the already apparent conclusion that “[a] person's social

position is reflected in the words and constructions he uses, as well as in the way he pronounces them

[...] which they do not generally have in, say, North America.” He does, however, nicely illustrate a

triangle which shows the base as the “broad, local accents” along a “regional variation,” and the sides

coming together to represent class status rising higher until they join at a point. This does seem relative

to the mass amount of people who speak in an accent or dialect, not just Cockney, that is bound to be

deemed embarrassing by someone somewhere else (13-14).

Stereotypes are constantly being inflicted upon people based on the way one looks or dresses,

the way one acts, and even the way one speaks. A Canadian walks into a bar with a maple leaf

plastered over his chest. Not a lot of people there have met a Canadian before, but some of them

probably expect him to say “eh” after every sentence. It is “the indexical information we collect from

listening to a person speak [through television shows, the radio, movies, and other media that lead to

slotting] him into an appropriate stereotype” (Wells 29). So if what Wells says is true, then it would

certainly have to apply to American dialects in the sense of southerners, urban dwellers, and country

bumpkins; and it does, but there is again that lack of prevalence that is seen so heavily in England.

Looking back at Cockney, it “signals working-class status and conflicts disturbingly with the stereotype

of the kind of wealthy upper-middle-class woman who would employ domestic help in the home” (30);

therefore, a Cockney woman of wealth would be hard-pressed to keep help who spoke in the same

fashion as her. It is a never ending cycle that will probably never reach a conclusion, because a is

always factoring into b; whereas, b affects c, d, and e.

Cockney, with its vulgarity, and Britishisms ,with their ability to amuse foreigners, are both still

in high demand throughout the world. Actors learn them and use them on stage, novelists collect them

and print them on their pages, and people sitting behind a screen on one side of the globe type them out

to someone sitting behind a screen on the other side. Through this media and mass communication, the

linguistics of England have almost become a commodity that is in high demand, though the deeper

meanings of their origins become lost to those seeking a short-lived amusement. Cockney, a dialect

found in a small place in England, is quite recognizable to others across the world even though its

home base is comparatively smaller than areas of lesser known dialects. And thanks to famous British

movies like Monty Python, the Harry Potter series, The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night, and television

programs like “Benny Hill,” many have come to learn what it means to drink a few too many wobbly

pops before starting a row and becoming that pissed tosser who everyone wants chucked out of the pub.

It's all for the best, right? Because speaking like the British, whether a part of them or not, is what

makes the world go round and turns the day into night. There is no class distinction when an American

phones a bobby to report a burglary or when a Brit yacks up their burger and fries. It's all relative in

linguistics.

Works Cited

Aitkenhead, Decca. "Class Rules." The Guardian. 20 Oct. 2007.9 Dec. 2008

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/oct/20/britishidentity.socialexclusion1>.

Algeo, John, and Thomas Pyles. The Origins and Development of the English Language. 5th ed.

Boston, MA: Thomas Wadsworth, 1964.

Ayres, Harry Morgan. "Cockney Past and Present." American Speech 14 (1939): 127-29.

Bolton, Reginald Pelham. "The Cockney and His Dialect." The Journal of American Folklore 8 (1895):

222-29.

Duckworth, Ted. A Dictionary of Slang. 9 Dec. 2008

<http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/>.

Kokeritz, Helge. "A Record of Late 18-Century Cockney." Language 25 (1949): 190-94.

Shaw, George Bernard. Pygmalion.

<http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/pygml10.txt>

Svartvik, Jan, and Geoffrey Leech. English: One Tongue, Many Voices. New York, NY: Palgrave

Macmillan, 2006.

Wells, J.C. Accents of English I. Cambridge 1982: Cambridge UP.