COCKNEY DIALECT DYING.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 22 November 1924, Page 6

COCKNEY DIALECT DYING.

OBSERVATIONS OF VISITORS TO LONDON. Observations made by visitors to London serve to emphasise the fact that the Cockney accent is slowly but surely disappearing, point's out a teacher of English in the Star. Particularly noticeable has been the improvement, such visitors declare, among those classes whom everyone hears speaking at some time or other —railway porters, ’bus conductors, commissionaires, cloakroom attendants or hawkers in the street. Nor is it surprising if one remembers that much of the English teaching in schools in Loudon and in the boroughs round toe Metropolis is, at present, and has been for some years past, directed towards the elimaticn of the Cockney accent.

Headmasters have found that hoys who have left school speaking without an accent have been invariably successful in obtaining desirable situations when competing with boys whose accent had remained untouched. This would seem to indicate that employers have a decided predilection for pure speech among their employees. A few schoolmasters have even emphasised this point to the pupils’ parents, and have asked for their co-operation, partly because thcv have found “Cockney” much more difficult to get rid. of when- the boys come from homes in which not much attention is paid to correct- diction. Once, however, the eliminating process has commenced, results follow quickly, especially when the boy himself is made to. realise the social advantages of unaccented speech. Much use is generally made of phonetics —an idea borrowed from the teaching of French —and of the correct recitation of English poetry. Every fault in diction : is’ remorselessly pointed out, and even the aid of humorous stories has been invoked.

Many boys have taken more trouble with their ' speech, after hearing the story of the Scotswoman who rang up a paper to- ask for a piper and was asked “What edition, madam?” or the one of the boy who asked his father wliat a bison was. and was told, “Oh! one" of them things your mother makes the puddings 'in.” '