Cockney, dialect of the English language traditionally spoken by working-class Londoners. Cockney is also often used to refer to anyone from London—in particular, from its East End.
The word Cockney has had a pejorative connotation, originally deriving from cokenay, or cokeney, a late Middle English word of the 14th century that meant, literally, “cocks’ egg” (i.e., a small or defective egg, imagined to come from a rooster—which, of course, cannot produce eggs). That negative sense gave rise to Cockney’s being used to mean “milksop” or “cockered child” (a pampered or spoiled child). The word was later applied to a town resident who was regarded as either affected or puny.
To most outsiders a Cockney is anyone from London, though contemporary natives of London, especially from its East End, use the word with pride. In its geographical and cultural senses, Cockney is best defined as a person born within hearing distance of the church bells of St. Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, in the City of London. It has been estimated that, prior to the noise of traffic, the sound of the Bow Bells reached about 6 miles (10 km) to the east, 5 miles (8 km) to the north, 4 miles (6 km) to the west, and 3 miles (5 km) to the south. The vast majority of the hospitals of London’s East End fall within that jurisdiction.
Cockney as a dialect is most notable for its argot, or coded language, which was born out of ingenious rhyming slang. There are as many as 150 terms that are recognized instantly by any rhyming slang user. For example, the phrase use your loaf—meaning “use your head”—is derived from the rhyming phrase loaf of bread. That phrase is just one part of London’s rhyming slang tradition that can be traced to the East End. That tradition is thought to have started in the mid-19th century as code by which either criminals confused the police or salesmen compared notes with each other beyond the understanding of their customers.
The manner in which Cockney rhyming slang is created may be best explained through examples. “I’m going upstairs” becomes I’m going up the apples in Cockney. Apples is part of the phrase apples and pears, which rhymes with stairs; and pears is then dropped. In this example, a word is replaced with a phrase that ends in a rhyming word, and that rhyming word is then dropped (along with, in apples and pears, the and). Likewise, “wig” becomes syrup (from syrup of figs) and “wife” becomes trouble (from trouble and strife).
Omission of the rhyming word is not a consistent feature of Cockney, though. Other, more-straightforward favourites that are recognizable outside the Cockney community and have been adopted into the general lexicon of English slang are the use of the Boat Race for “face,” Adam and Eve for “believe,” tea leaf for “thief,” mince pies for “eyes,” nanny goat for “coat,” plates of meat for “street,” daisy roots for “boots,” cream crackered for “knackered,” china plate for “mate,” brown bread for “dead,” bubble bath for “laugh,” bread and honey for “money,” brass bands for “hands,” whistle and flute for “suit,” septic tank for “Yank” (i.e., Yankee, or an American), and currant bun for “sun” and, with a more recent extension, “The Sun” (a British newspaper).
Less known are expressions whose meaning is less straightforward, such as borrow and beg for “egg” (a term that enjoyed renewed life during food rationing of World War II), army and navy for “gravy” (of which there was much at meals in both forces), and didn’t ought as a way to refer to port wine (derived from women who said, when asked to “have another,” that they “didn’t ought”). Light and dark took the place of “park,” an oblique reference to a past directive by the London County Council that a bell be sounded and the gates locked in parks at dusk. Lion’s lair came to stand for “chair,” in reference to the danger of disrupting a father’s afternoon nap in his easy chair. Likewise, bottle and stopper originated via the word copper (a policeman), with bottle meaning “to enclose” and a stopper referring to someone who prevents another person from doing something.
Many of the rearrangements used in Cockney phrasing became harmless nicknames rather than sinister code words. By the 1950s many working-class Londoners, fond of a bit of wordplay, were trading those phrases among themselves, often leaving off the rhyming part so that “taking the mickey” came to be trimmed from the original “Mickey Bliss” (i.e., “taking the piss,” British slang for ridiculing someone), and “telling porkies” was cut down from “porky pies” (i.e., “lies”).
Like any dialect or language, Cockney continued to evolve, and today it reflects the contours of contemporary pop culture in Great Britain. Much of “new” Cockney that first emerged in the late 20th century uses celebrities’ names: Alan Whickers standing in for “knickers,” Christian Slater for “later,” Danny Marr for “car,” David Gower for “shower,” Hank Marvin for “starving,” and Sweeney Todd for “the Flying Squad” (a unit within the London Metropolitan Police). Likewise, those coinages can be coarse, revolving around drinking (Paul Weller for “Stella” [Stella Artois, a beer brand], Winona Ryder for “cider”) and bodily functions (Wallace and Gromit for “vomit”). Adaptations have also occurred: on the rock ’n’ roll was eclipsed by on the Cheryl Cole to mean “being on the dole” (i.e., receiving government aid). Celebrity-centred Cockney can be strung into long riffs:
I left my Claire Rayners [trainers] down the Fatboy Slim [gym] so I was late for the Basil Fawlty [balti, a type of curry]. The Andy McNab [cab] cost me an Ayrton Senna [a “tenner,” or £10 note], but it didn’t stop me getting the Britney Spears [beers] in. Next thing you know it turned into a Gary Player [all-dayer] and I was off my Chevy Chase [“off my face,” or drunk].
In 2012 the Museum of London, citing a study it had conducted, announced that Cockney rhyming slang was dying out and suggested that youth slang, rap and hip-hop lyrics, and text messaging was threatening the “traditional dialect” of working-class Londoners. At about the same time, a campaign to teach Cockney in East End schools developed, as did efforts to recognize Cockney rhyming slang as an “official dialect” among the more than 100 languages already spoken by the area’s diverse population.