Jennifer Worth - Call The Midwife - A True Story Of The East End In The 1950S

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 a mouse).

Plural pronouns are split into singulars, sometimes repeating the plural for emphasis: me an’ ’er, we goes : pichers (me and her, we went to the pictures); 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 , or 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 . Bad also, 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 (The worst 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 supposed to 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 round the corner now, and calling for you).

These are all typical examples of Cockney speech, and are of great antiquity. If Henry VIII had used similar 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 (she isn’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’ve done 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 horse is 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, 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.