# mockney mockney (a portmanteau of "mock" and "cockney") is an affected accent and form of speech in imitation of cockney or working-class london speech or a person with such an accent. a stereotypical mockney speaker comes from an upper-middle-class background a person speaking with a mockney accent might adopt cockney pronunciation but retain standard grammatical forms whereas the genuine cockney speaker uses non-standard forms (eg negative concord) the first published use of the word according to the oxford english dictionary was in 1967 it is an affectation sometimes adopted for aesthetic or theatrical purposes and at other times just to sound "cool" to generate street credibility or to give the false impression that the speaker rose from humble beginnings and became prominent through hard work and some innate talent rather than the education contacts and other advantages that a privileged background tends to bring. britpop band blur was said to have a "mockney down-the-dogs blokey charm." mick jagger is often accused of being the first celebrity in modern times to overplay ir regional accent in order to boost ir street credibility one explanation of dialect adoption given in social linguistics is the desire for prestige that a person is likely to adopt speech patterns (including accent vocabulary dialect or even language) which they perceive to be prestigious the concept of communication accommodation either upwards or downwards in idiolect can be seen in many social interactions. one can put someone at ease by speaking in a familiar tone or intonation or one can intimidate or alienate someone by speaking more formally. for example in a courtroom a more formal voice register with technical legal jargon can be used to intimidate a defendant. in contrast mockney seeks to lower the perceived socio-economic class of the speaker # notable people described as using mockney speech **+** lily allen **+** russell brand **+** nigel kennedy **+** kate nash **+** jamie oliver **+** tim roth **+** joe strummer **+** class tourism **+** estuary english **+** mid-atlantic accent **+** mock language **+** mummerset **+** received pronunciation **+** sociolinguistics // republic of bob