#with no regard to the conventions of Welsh spelling or pronunciation

[obstinatecondolement]

When the train arrived I told the conductor that I was getting off at Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, but apparently he's getting off at Chester, so I have to tell whoever his relief is too. Which. You know. Is fine. Hopefully the practice of telling the first guy will help!

[katiemcveighaub]

Matthews, W. (1938) Cockney Past and Present. Routledge, New York. 

PREFACE;

Cockney is the characteristic speech of the ‘greatest city of the greatest empire that the world has known.

Wrights English Dialect Dictionary

For, as the characteristic speech of the capital of England,it has been by far the most important of all non-standardforms of English for its influence upon accepted speechever since accepted speech emerged.

16th/17th CENTURY

There were only four types, the Irish, the Welsh, the Southerner and the Northerner, and not only did they speak conventional dialects and do the same conventional things, but they actually used the same phrases and the same jokes.

In the plays we have discussed the most remarkable omission is a formal Cockney pronunciation. Other marks of vulgar speech are not lacking. Cockney mannerisms and idiom are consistently used, both for realistic and for comic effect, and most of the dramatists sufficiently indicate the grammatical solecisms of the ordinary Londoners.

The most prevalent Cockneyism was the use of shorte in words which were more correctly pronounced withshort i. Machyn and the churchwardens frequentlyuse such spellings as: consperacy, chelderyn, veseturs,kendred, weddowe, wretten, tell (till), ef (if), etc.

Instead of short o, Cockneys often used short a, as inmarow (morrow), caffen (coffin), falowing, maps (mops),Aspitall, bande (bond), and the same variant was usedbefore r, Darking, sswarn (sworn), shartt (short), etc. Avowel akin to that which we now employ in “far” oftenreplaced the sound of au and aw, dran (drawn), straberes(strawberries), warnut (walnut), dater (daughter).

In a fair number of spellings, long a and at are replacedby i or y. chynes (chains), obtyninge, or dined, Byes (bays),Rile (rail), strynge, nighbower, etc. On the face of it these spellings reflect a pronunciation which is regarded as the most characteristic of Cockney variants.

A great many other variant pronunciations were commonly employed by Londoners of the time, although they cannot be claimed as Cockney characteristics either because the examples are few or because the same variants were just as common in the speech of the upper classes.