Mockney (mock cockney)

[Bob Haas]

Good cite.  I have no citation for this much earlier demonstration of the
phenomenon (although I'm sure that some industrious student/scholar could
find one), but Mick Jagger has been affecting a mock street accent for so
long, I'm sure that its become ingrained into his very fiber.  Although he
speaks with a rougher English accent, he was very much upper middle class
and was a student at the London School of Economics.  (I have no idea
whether he graduated.)  I think I've got the name of the school correct, and
I believe that Brian Jones might have been a schoolmate of his, as well.
Now, I'm not absolutely sure that the accent is totally fake, but I recall
that I've read that Mick used it to give himself some credibility among the
rabid R&B crowds in London in the early 1960s.  Many of the other popular
bands of the era were comprised of actual working class fellows who didn't
have to put on an accent.

> From: callary ed <tb0exc1 at CORN.CSO.NIU.EDU>
> Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 07:37:00 -0600
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Mockney (mock cockney)
>
> u.s. news and world report, jan 8 01, citing john simpson of the oed, says
> mockney dates from 1989 and refers to 'educated middle-classers ditching
> posh accents for a working-class dialect. pop culture stars speak mockney
> "to acquire instant street cred, to appear blokey,"' (quoting simpson.'
> examples given are dropping of initial h, substituting v for th (voiced)
> medially, using guv'nor for boss and the missus for wife.