When someone from Britain speaks, Americans hear a "British accent"...

[Simon Brunning]

On 29 Jun 2005 15:34:11 -0700, Luis M. Gonzalez <luismgz at gmail.com> wrote:
> What's exactly the "cockney" accent?
> Is it related to some place or it's just a kind of slang?

A cockney is a *real* Londoner, that is, someone born within the City
of London, a.k.a The Square Mile. More specifically, it's someone born
"within the sound of Bow Bells" - i.e. close to St Mary le Bow, London
- <http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=EC2V+6AU>. This is within the
theoretical sound of Bow Bells, you understand - there have been
frequent and lengthy periods during which Bow Bells have not been rung
at all. There are in fact no longer any hospitals with maternity units
within the sound of Bow Bells, so there will be vanishingly few
cockneys born in future.

Strangely enough, this makes *me* a cockney, though I've never lived
in the square mile, and my accent is pretty close to received. I do
*work* in the City, though!

The cockney accent used to be pretty distinct, but these days it's
pretty much merged into the "Estuary English" accent common throughout
the South East of England.

> I'm not sure, but I think that I read somewhere that it is common in
> some parts of London, and that it is a sign of a particular social
> class, more than a regionalism. Is that true?

Cockney was London's working class accent, pretty much, thought it was
frequently affected by members of the middle classes. Estuary English
has taken over its position as the working class accent these days,
but with a much wider regional distribution.

How off topic is this? Marvellous!

-- 
Cheers,
Simon B,
simon at brunningonline.net,
http://www.brunningonline.net/simon/blog/