Grammar, Syntax and

Idiom

In all countries at all times in history, the poorest of the poor have tended to live around the docks. Trapped by poverty, they have become isolated, and remained more or less static. This may be why Poplar of the 1950s existed in a sort of time warp, with habits, customs and family life being somewhat behind the times. With the closure of the docks, this changed.

Speech is a living entity, changing with the people. But Cockney language changes have lagged far behind those of middle-class English. Many Cockney speech forms - idioms, grammar and

syntax - which today are considered flawed, are, in fact, very ancient speech forms that can be traced back to Tudor times.

Here are some typical examples: Possessive (conjugated)

The ‘-self’ form becomes:

Verbs frequently take the third person singular for the whole

conjugation:

Some expressions in the past tense use the past participle on its own, without the auxiliary (have, did):

The form of the past participle may itself be changed:

The demonstrative adjectives ‘these’ and ‘those’ are usually replaced by ‘them’, pronounced with a ‘v’, e.g. vem sosjis (these sausages), vem cabjis

(those cabbages).

The relative pronouns ‘who’, ‘which’, and ‘that’ are replaced by ‘as’ and ‘what’, or sometimes both, e.g. a bloke wha: oie knows, or ve bloke as wha: oie knows (the bloke that I know).

‘So’ is often replaced by ‘that’, e.g. moei col’s va: bad, oei can: smeoo nuffink (my cold’s so bad, I can’t smellanything).

‘Here’ and ‘there’ are often used for emphasis, e.g. vish ’ere ca:s a good mahsher (this cat’s a good mouser) va: vere kid’s a roei: ‘an’foo (that kid’s aright handful).

Auxiliary verbs are frequently duplicated, e.g. oei woon: ‘arf ’a towd ’im orf, oei woon: (I wouldn’t half havetold him off, I wouldn’t); ’e don: ‘arf maihk yer laugh, ’e do. (he doesn’t halfmake you laugh, he does).

No: ‘alf (not half) is an emphaticpositive in Cockney dialect.

‘Off of’ nearly always replaces ‘from’: oei go: i: off of ’Arry. ‘E give i: :a me (I got it from Harry. He gave it tome).

Adverbs frequently become

adjectives: ‘e done famous a: schoo-oo, vish term loeik (He did famously atschool this term); ve job’s go:a be done proper, loeik (The job’s got to be doneproperly).

To end a sentence with ‘like’ is typical Cockney dialect.

‘The’ is frequently omitted altogether and replaced with a glottal stop, fetch : tea (fetch the tea), go : pichers (go to the pictures).

A double glottal stop, executed with lightning speed, can sometimes be detected in such sentences.

The conjunction ‘that’ is usually replaced by ‘as how’, pronounced ‘azhow’ - oei knowed azhow i: was vem as wa: done i: (I knew that it was them

who had done it).

The relative pronouns ‘who’ and ‘which’ are frequently rendered ‘as what’: ve ca: as wa: ‘as brough: in a mahsh (The cat which has brought in amouse).

Plural pronouns are split into singulars, sometimes repeating the plural for emphasis: me an’ ’er, we goes : pichers (me and her, we went to thepictures); vem an’ uzh, we ’azh a good foie: (them and us, we had a good fight).

Comparisons are subject to many enhancements, and can go clean over the top: ‘better’ and ‘best’ become betterer, bestest, or more betterer , most bestest,o r even bestestest. Vat wozh ve beshteshtish fing wha: ‘e ever done.

(That was the best thing he ever did.) Good is often kept the same, although I have heard gooderer and goodist.

‘worse’, ‘worst’ become worser, worsest, or worserer, worsesest. Badalso, may be kept the same but can be baderer, baddest.

Things can go even further on the lips of a Cockney wordsmith: ve mos’ worsestest fing wha: ‘e ever done was more be:erer van ’er wickidniss (Theworst thing he ever did was better than her wickedness). And that’s about the most worsestest bit of grammar I have ever heard - but I love it!

‘A-’ prefixes the participles of many common verbs and this is a survival of the ‘y-’ prefix that was used

in the Middle Ages:

“Wha: chew sh’poash :a be a-doin’ of, eh?” (What are you supposedto be doing?)

“Oei wus a-ge:in me mum’s errins” (I was getting my mum’s errands[shopping])

“Weoo, your mum’s a-comin’ rahnd : corner nah an’ a-callin’ for yer” (well, your mum’s coming roundthe corner now, and calling for you).

These are all typical examples of Cockney speech, and are of great antiquity. If Henry VIII had used simila grammatical forms it would have been the King’s English, and pockets of the Docklands people retained this speech form in the 1950s.

Shakespeare wrote, not for the instruction of the intelligentsia, but for the entertainment of the London people. Double negatives occur in his plays and so, presumably, they were acceptable. Cockneys make generous use of such negatives: she ain: nahbody, va: cah, oei’m a-tellin’ ya; she ain: no: go: nuffink (triple negative!) on ’er back wha:s no: cast-offs, oei teoozhya (sheisn’t anybody, that cow; she hasn’t got anything on her back which isn’t a cast-off, I tell you). We are taught at school that a double negative makes an affirmative, but when, in Cockney, three, four or five negatives are used, the rule ceases to bind!

‘Never’ is nearly always used for

‘did not’:

“You broke ve cup.”

“No, oei niver. Straigh: up, oei niver.” (You broke the cup. No I didn’t.Honestly I didn’t.)

‘To’ is usually dropped after the prepositions ‘up’, ‘down’, and ‘round’ and replaced by a glottal stop: up : Aooga’ (up to Aldgate); dahn : Dilly

(down to Piccadilly); rahn’ : Pop (round to the pawnbroker).

Cockneys generally seem to need to ‘have been and gone’ before they can do or say anything: she been an’ gawn an’ got sploeiced (she has got married) oei been an’ gawn an’ done it nah! (I’vedone it now!). A Cockney boy of my acquaintance had to ‘turn round’ before

he could say or do anything:

An’ I

(pronounced oie

)

turns rahn’ an’ I says “’ah abah: goin’ darn Steps?” An’ ’e turns rahn’ an’ says “you’re on”. So we offs, an’ we gi:s ’alf-way vere an’ ’e turns rahn an’ says, ’e says “’ah abah: some fishin’?” So I turns rahn’ an’ says “Fishin! Why didn: you say va: afore? We’re ’alf-way vere nah. We ain: go: no gear.” So ’e turns rahn’ an’ ’e says “oh come on, won: take long.” So we turns rahn an’ goes ’ome for : gear, loike.

Such circumlocution would make

all but the coolest head dizzy, but to those accustomed from early childhood to being, linguistically, in a perpetual state of revolution it is all perfectly clear and logical.

The present tense is nearly always used to depict a fast-moving series of past events, and this gives particular strength and vitality to a story:

Oie’m tellin yer, last nigh: vey ’as a set-to. She clocks ’im one on : snout, an’ ’e grabs ’er an’ pushes ’er ’gainst : fender, an’ she ’its ’er ’ead, an’ vat’s ’ow she gi:s a black eye, see? Oei’m tellin’ yer.

A particularly charming idiom in narrated gossip is the continuous use of ‘I said’, ‘she/he said’ - but used in the

present tense. (In all the following I is pronounced oie.):

I says to ’er, I says, “look ’ere” I says, “I’ve just abou: ‘ad it up to ’ere” I says “an’ you be:er watch it” I says “or else”. an’ she says, she says “wha:” she says, “you fre:enin’ me?” she says, an’ I says “I am va: you ge: narky wiv me”, I says, “an’ I’ll give yer a proper mahfoooo

(mouthful)

. I’m tellin’ yer, nah jes watch i:, ’cos I’m tellin’ yer.”

This last phrase I’m tellin’ yer is intensely Cockney, and is always spoken with determination, and sometimes anger. It is also a guarantee of veracity: oei teoozhya vis ’ere nag’s a winner,

oei’m a-tellin’ yer (I tell you, this horseis a winner, I’m telling you.); oei teoozhya, ’e’s va: mean ’e wouldn: give the pickins ah: ‘is shnah: (I tell you,he’s that mean, he wouldn’t give you the pickings out of his snout [nose]).

“Don’t talk to me about ... ” or “you can’t tell me nothing about ... ” are both used as an opening gambit to attract attention. They both imply unrivalled personal experience and specialist knowledge of a subject already under discussion:

Dandruff! You can’t tell me nuffink abah: dandruff, you can’t. Cor, we all go: i:. I goddi:, me mum’s goddi:, me dad’s goddi:, me free sisters an’ me nan’s goddi:. An’ know what?

Bleedin’ dawg’s goddi:. Cor! Dandruff all over : bleedin’ place; on : table, on : dresser, on : mantlepiece, all over : floor. Everywhere. Me mum she shweeps up bucki:s of i: every day. Gor blimey, don: talk :a me ’bah: dandruff, ma:e.

Subordinate clauses take on a life of their own; overheard in All Saints between two church workers, one of whom had been asked to join the roster of flower-arrangers:

“’oo asked yer to be a flarh-loeidy

(flower-lady)

ven?” “Ve loeidy wiv ve long teef.” “Oh yers. Ve loeidy wiv ve long teef an’ ve boss-oiyes

(boss-eyes)

.” “Nah, nah, no: ‘er. Ve loeidy wha: asked me :o be a flarh-loeidy’s teef are more longerer’n ’erens.

The foregoing is just a taste of the rich vernacular that goes to make up the Cockney dialect. A comprehensive study would be a full-time job for any writer, but it would be rewarding.

Slang

Slang, rhyming slang and backslang were so much a part of Cockney speech in the 1950s that many children starting school at the age of five had to learn a whole new vocabulary.

Backslang has largely disappeared from the vernacular. It used to be the language of the Costers, and was used between themselves for trading and bargaining, e.g yennep (penny). The street coster lingered almost to the end of the twentieth century, but has just about disappeared now.

The slang I heard in the 1950s was rich, varied, colourful, obscene, racy, and widely used. It has been said that

rhyming Cockney slang was originally developed to outwit authority and nosy parkers. If this was the case, it was entirely successful, because no one but the initiated could follow it. Whatever the origins of this closed language, the humour of it is too good to be missed.

The following is taken from Jack J o n e s ’ s Rhyming Cockney Slang, published by Abson Books in 1971:

This evocative and often elusive language was widely used until the

1970s, but with the closure of the docks and the disintegration of family life, Cockney speech is changing, and this fascinating heritage of rhyming slang is falling into disuse. It was once a vital, living, idiomatic form of speech, but I predict that during the first quarter of the twenty-first century it will become a mere relic, found only in dictionaries to be studied and reproduced in soap operas for the amusement of the masses.

The following books can be recommended:

The Muvver Tongue, by RobertBalthrop and Jim Woolveridge,

The Journeyman Press, 1980

The Cockney, by Julian Franklyn,

Andre Deutsch, 1953

Dictionary of Rhyming Slang, by

Julian Franklyn, Routledge, 1975

An unrivalled record of Cockney speech is to be found in Mayhew’s London and the other following bookscan be recommended:

to the Angel (Phoenix House, London1950).

Cockney Past and Present (Routledge,

London, 1940).

O’London, Jack (Wilfred Whitten)

London Stories (TC & EC Jack Ltd

Bristol, 1948).

Quennell, Peter, ed., Mayhew’s

London (Hamlyn, London, 1969).

Robbins, G., Fleet Street

Blitzkrieg Diary (Ernest Benn Ltd

London, 1942).

Upton, Clive and David Parry, The

Dictionary of English Grammar:

Survey of English Dialects (Routledge,

London, 1994).

GLOSSARY

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 975