A rather silly language, invented so that undercover cops earwigging in the pubs couldn't understand the crooks at the next table planning their robbery.
It's not silly, it might sound silly, but, I liken it to how NASCAR came from bootleggers, Cockney came from people trying to avoid the law I guess in London, like people selling stuff on the black market I guess. Also, according to wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockney Something I've heard all my life 'in earshot' turns out is cockney too. My father still says 'earshot' a lot.
Today, people who sell marijuana in London on the black market call it 'food' or whatever. I guess that's the same idea behind Cockney... I guess. It's a street language designed to mislead the authorities. But that said, my father would teach us it as a party trick of his when I was growing up, and proudly cite his Cockney roots when doing so.
If earshot is something I have to explain, then I love earshot, but, to be within earshot of something means to hear something.
This has inspired me to write a sketch about a Japanese/Cockney dictionary and a Japanese family standing in London using it to ask someone something.
I like the expressions of writers... 'Treatment' etc... I still don't know what that is, even though I tried to write one, for you see my father is also a card carrying writer who's published etc and has been writing since before I was born, and due to recent family emergencies and him being within walking distance, I've used writing as a way of opening up to him, again, after so long, and... Now that I remember his regional dialect, I might use it as a tool too, to open up with him, build that bridge on that level too. God, youngest child or what?! right.. I'm the youngest out of so many and.. It's written the youngest child knows how to manipulate? I mean, that's kind of harsh World but whatever, I'm keen to now engage my father as a writer, and a Cockney, and explain to him; I use it nowadays to let people know I'm white and from London when people assume I'm Polish on the construction site, saying Guv' or Guvnor when being asked where I'm from from a colleague is a whole lot faster. Just say Guv' when saying where I'm from to say I'm white, I'm from London to people from inside and outside of the EU and once this guy from Northern Ireland, so, yeah, knowing Cockney is handy and in my day to day life; I've adopted Guv/Guvnor - which is sweet. I'll just ask him what 'Treatment' means, because he's a writer and I just love that word. I know what I penned up and handed him that he called a 'Treatment' but... IDK. We're talking concept & example material.
My father's first language was German. His mother, a peasant if there ever was one, used to say of a child being made to eat something he doesn't like, "he's eating with long teeth." I always really liked that expression - it's a vivid picture of someone eating something they don't want to eat.
