Chapter 8: The Echoes of an English Voice (293-336)

1
Chapter 8 The Echoes of an English Voice
(293-336)

• The Echoes
• of an
• English
• Voice

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The Story of English

• By Don L. F. Nilsen
• Based on The Story of English
• By Robert McCrum, Robert MacNeil
• and William Cran (Penguin, 2003)

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The RajThe sun never sets on the British Empire.

• English East-end convicts (Cockney speakers) were
  sent to New South Wales, Australia.
• British loyalists ended up in New Zealand.
• British subjects also colonized Rhodesia (Cape
  Colony) in Southern Africa, Singapore, Hong Kong,
  parts of China, parts of Canada, India, Pakistan,
  Burma, Afghanistan, Thailand, Tanzania, the
  Falkland Islands and America.
• (McCrum 293-294)

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English Raj (McCrum 274/297)
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Cockney

• The word Cockney refers to a cocks egg, and
  is considered of little value.
• In the 16th century, Cockney was the language of
  all Londoners who were not part of the Court.
• During the industrial revolution, the destitute
  farmers in Essex, Suffolk, Kent, and Middlesex
  moved to Londons East End. This is where
  Cockney developed.
• (McCrum 295)

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Cockney English (Londons West End) (McCrum
278/302)
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Cockney in Culture Literature

• Cockney is the language of the girls murdered by
  Jack the Ripper.
• Cockney is the language of Sam Weller in Charles
  Dickenss Pickwick Papers.
• Cockney is the language of George Bernard Shaws
  Eliza Doolittle
• Cockney is the language of Sweeney Todd.
• Cockney is the language of Michael Cain in Alphie
• Cockney is the language of Charles Dickens
  Oliver Twist.

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• Cockney speakers say yearoles and chimbley
  for ear holes and chimney.
• They say bruvver for brother.
• In butter, bottle and rotten they have a
  glottal stop.
• They drop the final g in eatin and
  drinkin.
• They often use the tag, isnt it.
• They have an intrusive r in gone, off and
  cough so they become gorn, orf and corf.
• You becomes yer tomato and potato become
  tomater and potater
• God help us, and God blind me become
  Gawdelpus and Gorblimey.
• (McCrum 300-301)

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Cockney Rhyming Slang

• In Cockney rhyming slang row and table become
  bull and cow and Cain and Abel.
• Suit ? whistle and flute hat ?
  tit-for-tat gloves ? turtle-doves boots
  ? daisyroots nude ? in the rude breast ?
  Bristol City wife ? trouble and strife
  liar ? holy friar money ? bees and
  honey and talk ? rabbit and pork

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• In Cockney Rhyming Slang, the word for teeth is
  Edward Heath, because this was one of the
  prominent features of the premiers smile. And
  John Selwyn became the word for Bummer
  because his last name was Gummer.
• Because Cockney Rhyming Slang is an Argot, the
  speakers try to make the expressions cryptic,
  therefore the expressions above get reduced to
  whistle, titfer, turtles, daisies, Bristols,
  trouble, holy, bees, and rabbit.
• The word for backside is Khyber. This is
  because of the British soldiers who had been
  stationed in the Khyber Pass.
• (McCrum 303-305)

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Foreign Influences on Cockney

• The Cockney word pal for friend is the Romany
  word for brother. Dukes is the Romany word
  for hands, as in the expression, Put up your
  Dukes.
• The Cockney words schlemiel (idiot),
  schmutter (clothing), gelt (money), and
  nosh (food) come from Yiddish.
• Cockney parlyvoo (chat), San fairy ann (it
  doesnt matter), and ally toot sweet (hurry up)
  come from French.
• And Cockney bullshit (rubbish) comes from
  American English. (McCrum 306)

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Back Slang

• Another secret language that developed during the
  19th Century was back slang.
• Instead of saying the numbers one, four, five
  and six they would say eno, rouf, efiv and xis.
• In back slang, fat and boy become taf and
  yob. (McCrum 303)

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Market Language

• When greengrocers trade wholesale in fruits and
  vegetables, they are sometimes talking to two or
  three customers at the same time. The
  greengrocer might say,
• Right, George, you can be a rouf there. and he
  knows that he has bought at four pounds, and the
  other person, who might be buying the same thing
  for five pounds, doesnt know.

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• The slang numbers that are used in Londons East
  End are meant to be confusing.
• Cows calf is half, nicker is one, bottle is
  two, carpet is three, rouf is four, jacks is
  five, Tom Nicks is six, neves is seven,
  garden gate is eight, and cock and hen or
  cockle is ten. One greengrocer remarks,
• Theres no rules. The other day this bloke
  said, Do they come to an Alan Whicker then?
  Meaning nicker, which is a pound.
• (McCrum 304-305)

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• In My Fair Lady, Eliza Doolittle is Professor
  Pickerings Project.
• She doesnt pronounce /h/ sounds and she adds /t/
  to words like orphant and sermont.
• She pronounces thrust, farthing and feather
  as frust, farding and fever. (McCrum 295)

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• Instead of flowers and Go on and A B C she
  says flars, and Garn and Ay-ee, Ba-yee,
  Sa-yee.
• She doesnt pronounce her /h/ sound and has to
  learn In Hartford, Hereford and Hampshire,
  hurricanes hardly every happen.
• She pronounces chain, strange and obtain as
  chyne, straynge, and obtayn, and has to
  learn The rain in Spain falls mainly on the
  plain.
• (McCrum 295)

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Cockney Friendship

• Cockney English has many different terms to
  indicate the closeness of a relationship, ranging
  from
• Duck
• Love
• Dear
• Cock
• (My old) chum
• Guvnor and
• Mate
• The people that a Cockney speaker mixes with
  socially are known as the mates. (McCrum 307)

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Australian English (McCrum 286/311)
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Australian English

• Billabong Water hole
• Billy Coffee
• Boomerang Throwing stick
• Coolibah An Australian tree
• Gday
• Illywhacker (con man)

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More Australian English

• Jumbuck Sheep
• Kangaroo, Dingo, Jooey, Koalla, Kookaburra,
  Wallabee, and Wombat Australian animals
• Outback
• Swagman Hobo, tramp
• Tucker-Bag Bag for holding tucker
• Walkabout Mindless meandering
• Waltzing Matilda A song

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Waltzing Matilda

• Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong.
• Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
• And he sang as he watched and waited till his
  billy boiled,
• Wholl come a waltzing Matilda with me?
• Waltzing Matilda,
• Waltzing Matilda,
• Wholl come a waltzing Matilda with me?
• And he sang as he watched and waited till his
  billy boiled,
• Wholl come a waltzing Matilda with me?

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• Down came a jumbuck to drink at the billabong
• Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee.
• And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his
  tucker-bag,
• Youll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.
• Waltzing Matilda,
• Waltzing Matilda,
• Youll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.
• And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his
  tucker-bag.
• Youll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.
• (McCrum 314)

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Is Australian English like British or American
English?

• Australians (like Paul Hogan, a.k.a. Crocodile
  Dundee) are independent.
• Unlike Cockney speakers, there is no glottal stop
  in Australian English, and they dont drop their
  /h/. (McCrum 319)
• Australians say both biscuit and cookie, both
  nappy and diaper, both lorry and truck.
• They ride in both elevators and lifts.

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• Australians get their water from faucets not
  taps, and their cars run on petrol not gas,
  and drive on freeways, not motorways.
• Americans borrowed kangaroo from Australia, and
  the Australians borrowed it back in the
  expression kangaroo court. (McCrum 315, 327)

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Let Stalk Strine

• Afferbeck Lauder entitled his book, Let Stalk
  Strine. He shows how
• How much is it? ? Emma chisit?
• They ought to. ? Aorta.
• Nothing but a ? Numb Butter
• Aussies also love metaphors like as scarce as
  rocking horse manure and as bald as a
  bandicoot. And they might describe teenage
  bliss as feed, a frostie, and a feature meaning
  food, beer and sex. (McCrum 326)

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• Although Australia is the size of Europe,
  Australians live in a one-class society, united
  in a mixture of hostility and nostalgia towards
  Mother England,
• United especially in the isolation and rigour of
  Australian life.
• The rising inflection has to do with Australian
  insecurity.
• Aussies, who have a twang in their speech, feel
  that the English use Lah di dah talk.
• They see English attitudes as uppity.
• Boys who use proper speech are often considered
  to be regarded as sissies, or even worse,
  poofters. (McCrum 320, 323)

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Australian Social Gender Dialects

• Even though there are no regional dialects in
  Australia, there are three social dialects
• Broad Australian
• General Australian
• Cultivated Australian.
• Women and girls tend towards General or
  Cultivated Australian, andmen and boys,
  expressing mateship and machismo, tend towards
  General or Broad Australian. (McCrum 322)

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What is a Pommy?

• An Aussie will call an Englishman a Pommy.
• This is short for pomegranate because
  Englishmen are often ruddy-cheeked.
• In Cockney Rhyming Slang an Englishman is called
  Jimmy. This is short for Jimmy Grant which
  slant-rhymes with pomegranate, and which
  alludes to a prototypical Englishman.
• (McCrum 315-316)

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Barry Humphries

• On stage, Australian Barry Humphries becomes Dame
  Edna Everage.
• One of her favorite targets is the Wowser,
  which is a prudish teetotalling Englishman.
• Barry Humphries himself invented the word
  Wowser. It came into the language when he
  referred to Alderman Waterhouse as a white,
  wolly, weary, watery, word-wasting wowser from
  Waverly. (McCrum 316)

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Dame Nellie Melba

• Dame Nellie Melba lamented the way Australians
  use oi for I, and ahee for ay (in may or
  say), and spoke caustically of Australias
  twisted vowels, distortions and flatness of
  speech which, seriously prejudice other people
  against us.
• (McCrum 324)
• By the way, Dame Nellie Melba liked to eat a
  special kind of toast.
• This later became Melba Toast.

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New Zealand English (McCrum 302/331)
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New Zealand English

• Samuel Butler was probably thinking of New
  Zealand when he wrote his satire, Erewhon (which
  is Nowhere backwards).
• About New Zealand speech, Butler wrote, The
  all-engrossing topics seem to be sheep, horses,
  dogs, cattle, English grasses, paddocks, bush and
  so forth.
• New Zealanders, like Australians, have three
  social dialects Cultivated, General, and Broad.
• (McCrum 329)

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New Zealand Britain

• There are a lot of Scottish settlements in the
  South Island, and there they roll their /r/.
  This is known as the Southland burr.
• If there is a choice between British and
  American English usage, the New Zealander will
  tend towards the British where the Aussie may
  prefer the American. (McCrum 330, 333)

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!South African English Afrikans (McCrum
303/332)
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!English vs. Afrikaans in South Africa

• In June of 1976, the South African government
  decreed that Afrikaans was to be encouraged and
  English discouraged.
• The Afrikaaner authorities had introduced a
  regulation that forced schoolchildren to learn
  some of their subjects through the medium of
  Afrikaans instead of English.
• (McCrum 334)

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!!Afrikaaner words in English

• Trek, veldt and apartheid are Afrikaaner
  words.
• Eskia Mphahlele at the University of
  Witwatersrand said,
• English istied up with the Black mans efforts
  to liberate himself.
• Afrikaans, by contrast, has become the language
  of the oppressor. (McCrum 335)

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!!!Accompanying DVD

• My Fair Lady by Lerner and Lowe (originally from
  George Bernard Shaws Pygmalion)

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!!!Works Cited

• McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil.
  The Story of English. New York, NY Penguin,
  1986. (source of map citations)
• McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil.
  The Story of English Third Revised Edition. New
  York, NY Penguin, 2003. (source of text
  citations)