If we don't get a glimpse of a few pearly kings and queens in the London 2012 Opening Ceremony then, cor blimey guvnor, you can knock me down wiv a fevver. These, after all, are the Games slap bang in the Cockney manor.

For a small, but interested party of media who gathered at the Carpenters Arms this week, just a few hundred yards down Cambridge Heath Road from Bethnal Green tube station, there was an opportunity to get a thorough preview of all things Cockney in the most London Olympic Borough of all – Tower Hamlets. (And, by-the-by, to consume a heavenly pie and mash. I couldn't get there fast enough.)

The self-proclaimed "gateway to the London 2012 Olympic Games" – whose Mayor, Lutfur Rahman, was in attendance for what was billed as a "Traditional Cockney Welcome" – has a total of 127 different languages spoken within its boundaries, a reflection of the enormously diverse influx of nationalities to the area in the last half century. And the 127th, of course, is Cockney.

But what is Cockney? That, would you Adam and Eve, is not a simple question to answer. One of the earliest recorded references is in William Langland's 1362 blockbuster The Vision Of William Concerning Piers Plowman (I read it myself about 150 years ago and can recommend the bit about the Seven Deadly Sins) where the phrase "coken" (of cocks) and "ey" (egg) occurred – which is, a reference to a cock's egg.

Cockney rhyming slang for money


There was a reference too in Chaucer's Reeve's Tale, around 1386, to a "cokenay", which was in this context "a child tenderly brought up, and effeminate fellow, a milksop". As our guest academic, Dr Sue Fox – a linguist from nearby Queen Mary, University of London – explained – a little awkwardly in the circumstances – the word Cockney was originally a shorthand reference to "an individual of a kind that did not fit in society".

Over the years, she added, the term Cockney has come to refer both to a group of people – generally, working class Londoners predominantly from the East End – and a language, the distinguishing and ever-changing characteristics of which are currently engaging her full attention as she seeks to document a living culture in the process of change.

"In the last five decades Cockney has probably undergone more rapid change than at any time in its long history," she said. "Which isn't surprising given the vast social and economic redevelopment of the traditional dialect area."

So what are the distinguishing characteristics of Cockney speech? Dr Fox gave us a swift tour of vowels and consonants to illustrate the general theme. Thus: "face" is pronounced "feice"; "mouth: is "maarf"; "think" is "fink"; "father" is "farverr"; and "isn't" is "ain't".

By this time, the scholarly doctor was beginning to get into the swing of things. "So if I wanted to say I hadn't got any money, I would say 'I ain't got no money'".

Traditional cockney pie and mash shop in London's East End 

"You're right there, girl," chimed in a Cockney voice from the back (the classic position for a Cockney voice to chime in from, of course). "I ain't got no bees-and-'unny neither..."

So let's stop the narrative there for a moment. Let's go no furver. This was the voice of Jimmy Jukes, whose suit of many buttons and sequins proclaimed him Pearly King of Bermondsey. Jukes, large and affable, is a man with whom, nevertheless, you would not mess. And here was a classic example of Cockney rhyming slang – "bees and honey", that is, "money".

After the good doctor had concluded and begun a series of interviews with film crews from around the world, Mr Jukes was good enough to expand on the "So What Is Cockney Then?" front.

"Cockney was a phrase for a misshapen egg long ago," he said. "As it was misshapen, it was assumed it had been laid by a cock. But cocks don't lay eggs – hens lay eggs. So it was a bit of an urban myth to start with.

"The whole business of pearly kings and queens was a bit of a mickey-take to start off with. Back when it started, a lot of people in the East End really didn't have any money. But it meant you could get a dirty old suit and put a load of buttons on it and then start giving it a bit of a show. That's where the phrase 'Flash Harry' comes from – your 'Flash' is the line of the buttons on the edge of your trousers." At which point he hitched his own leg onto the barstool, showing off a constellation of buttons.

So, one wondered (that was me wondering), can anyone introduce new Cockney slang? Or do they have to run it past the pearly kings and queens, with their family histories, first? Answer – you can't stop the tide of invention.

Pearly king, Jimmy Jukes

"People can say what they want," said Jukes, a Cockney entertainer who used to work on the Waterloo flower stall with Great Train robber Buster Edwards who featured in the film Buster, and who indeed appeared on a stall in the film along with the man playing Edwards, Phil Collins. (Whatever happened to him?)

"Some of the youngsters have started saying 'Armani' instead of 'sarni' [sandwich]. There are new words coming in all the time."

So, to be proper slang, does a new phrase have to conform to what, if you were writing an academic paper on the subject, you might call the Classic Cockney pattern? That is, using a word that associates with another word which is a rhyme to the word you mean – such as "apples", as in "apples and pears", rhyming with "stairs", or "dog", as in "dog and bone", rhyming with "phone"?

Well no. It doesn't. "You get people now saying 'You're 'avin' a giraffe' – meaning 'laugh'," Jukes adds. And there are other pieces of slang that don't even rhyme. For instance, if you wander off on your own, you have "done a Captain Oates" – a reference to the frostbitten and barely functioning Antarctic explorer who walked out of the main tent and into a blizzard so as not to be a burden to his friends. Or you might have a "George Cannon" – that is, a car crash. Don't ask. I don't know.

The slang, Jukes adds, was partly brought in as a kind of code among costermongers and market traders so they could communicate with each other without being obvious. "For instance," he said, "if you were on a fish stall, and your boss said to you 'Give him the d-lo', that would mean you giving the customer the old fish – which is d-lo backwards. And he wouldn't know what was going on."

Jukes is suitably mysterious about what, if any connection the pearly kings and queens might be about to have with the impending Games. He is more than happy to talk about the influence of sporting figures on Cockney rhyming slang, however. The problem is, there is no great sporting influence.

Pearly kings and queens celebrate their annual Costermonger's Harvest Festival in London

"You've got 'Bobby Moore', which is a score – £20," he said. There has also been a recent alternative to the old Ruby Murray – curry slang. For younger Cockneys, curry is now apparently an Andy Murray.

Still, the sporting lexicon is a little bare down Stepney and Bethnal Green way. Maybe things will change if Jet wins another Decrepit in the London. (Jet Plane: Usain; Decrepit and Old: Gold: London Palladium: Stadium.) All right then. Make your own up.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the past five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames.

Credit for image of Jimmy Jukes: London-In-Sight Blog