We have Carrie Lofty back with us today chatting about cockney slang and how that fits into her release His Very Own Girl. Β Help me in welcoming Carrie back to Cocktails and Books.
Cockney Slang
By Carrie Lofty
By the end of this post, you’ll be able to talk about a midday craving for gin without anyone being the wiserβ¦!
Lulu, the heroine of His Very Own Girl [http://carrielofty.com/HVOG.html] is a British civilian pilot during World War II. Although she was raised in a middle class family by two avid pilots, she wound up in the London Underground during the early years of the war. That meant making do very quickly, and learning nearly amounts to a whole other language.Β
Cockney slang.
Don’t worry. I’ll take you through it step by step. Just read this passage from His Very Own Girl when Lulu takes the hero Joe Weber, an American paratrooper and medic, to a jazz club.Β
Lulu knocked on the door, which was opened by a tall man who bore a remarkable resemblance to the building. His shoulders curved like the top of the letter C. He had no waist to speak of; the lines of his body extended straight from armpit to ankle. Maybe forty years old, maybe sixty, he wore a flat cap and a grizzled white beard. Patches of skin poked through where the hair on his cheeks had thinned.
That they’d find some manner of diversion here was absurd.
“Lulu,” Joe said. “Let’s go.”
She ignored him and addressed the man in the doorway. “Allo, Banger, me old china! How’s your pretty young Dutch?”
“Me turtle? Always on the dog. Should give her a good kick up the April.” He squinted at Joe. “Who’s the daft ranger?”
“Just a garden gate.”
“But . . . he’s wooden.”
“Aren’t they all these days?”
The man scratched his beard and offered a smile that shone with genuine affection. “You, briney, always one for a Tufnell. Fancy a Vera?”
“That’d be swell.”
Lulu gave the man a heartfelt hug and slipped inside. Joe was left in the alley, dazed, completely lost. The ogre at the door motioned him inside. Wherever they were, whatever this place was . . . how bad could it be? At least there wouldn’t be a passel full of spit-shined officers giving him the evil eye every time he ordered a beer or talked with a dame.
He followed Lulu into a vestibule at the base of a flight of stairs. A naked lightbulb hung down from a frayed electrical cord, illuminating her face like a gangster questioned by cops.
“What was that all about?” he asked.
“Cockney rhyming slang. Banger’s from London, too.”
“Did he call me wooden?”
“That just means you’re an American. Wooden . . . wooden plank . . . Yank. He was being polite, actually.” She dipped her head closer as if ready to share a secret. “He could’ve called you a septic.”
“Septic . . . as in tank?”
“That’s right.”
Me ol’ Chinaβ¦ As in China plate = mate (friend)
Pretty young Dutch⦠Duchess of Fife = wife
Me turtle⦠Turtle dove = love
Always on the dog⦠Dog and Bone (a common pub name) = On the phone
Good kick up the old April⦠April in Paris = arse
Daft ranger⦠stranger
Garden gate⦠Mate (friend)
It’s like something my young daughters would make up! But it was (and still is) spoken in many varieties throughout urban London.
To say that WWII brought together people of differing culture would be a massive understatement. Even between an American and a Brit, there was never ending variety. Lucky for Lulu and Joe, they don’t need words when it’s time to head home from the jazz club. In romance, the hero and heroine speak a language of their own.
Oh, and by the way? Cockney rhyming slang for gin is Vera Lynn *g*
I’d like to give away a digital copy of HIS VERY OWN GIRL in any format. Just answer the question: What weird words or phrases are particular to your family? (Mine speaks almost entirely from Monty Python or Star Wars.)Β
To enter, complete the Rafflecopter below leaving a blog comment answering Carrie’s question.Β The winner will be chosen, at random, on September 12, 2012.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
A sensual historical romance set during World War II about a female British civilian pilot and the American paratrooper medic who opens her heart.
After war took the lives of Lulu Davies’s parents and her fiancΓ©, she promised herself she would guard her heart carefully and concentrate on her great love–flying the biggest and best airplanes as a British civilian pilot. Sheβs content to strive for greatness in the skies, and dance with a few GIs on the way.
Brawny, quiet American medic Joe Weber signed up with the paratroopers to escape his checkered past. The first test of his medical skill takes place when he rushes to the scene of a plane crash. He’s stunned to come face-to-face with a spirited, dark-haired beauty.
Their flirtation breaks all of Lulu’s rules, but dance by dance, week by week, walk by walk, she falls in love with this honest, vulnerable man on the run from his demons. The lovers only have one night together before Joe departs for the front lines.Β
Lulu distracts herself work and the friendships of her colleagues, but she can’t get the handsome medic out of her head. Only time and hope will tell if her love will return unharmed, and if they can overcome their pasts to forge a beautiful life together in peace-time.
Summer has been a blast! Available now from Pocket Books are three Christ Family [http://carrielofty.com/Books.html] romances. FLAWLESS kicked it off with a tale of an estranged couple’s search for love. The 99Β’ tie-in novella, “A LITTLE MORE SCANDAL” follows two aspiring lovers to London. And the Scottish-set second novel, STARLIGHT, was an RT BookReviews 4Β½ Star Top Pick. “Richly nuanced characters and a superbly realized Victorian setting come together brilliantly.” ~ The Chicago Tribune
I’ve also launched a co-written pseudonym, Katie Porter [http://www.katieporterbooks.com], with my long-time friend and critique partner, Lorelie Brown. Our “Vegas Top Guns” series of contemporary erotic romances launched from Samhain with DOUBLE DOWN and INSIDE BET, both of which were RT BookReviews 4Β½ Star Top Picks: “This racy, raunchy, hella good readβ¦will move Fifty Shades of Grey to the children’s section of the bookstore.”Β
Where to find me:
Twitter: @carrielofty
Thanks again to Cocktails and Books for featuring His Very Own Girl!
We don’t have any.
Some are unsuitable for some ears and the rest are mainly southern phrases.