Most of the features mentioned above have, in recent years, partly spread into more general south-eastern speech, giving the accent called Estuary English; an Estuary speaker will use some but not all of the Cockney sounds.[][49][]

•Frequent use of the phrase to "get the hump" or "have the hump" (pronounced "'ave the 'ump", a primarily Cockney phrase that refers to being grumpy with someone else on account of feeling wronged by the other person.[50][51]

Changing attitudes towards Cockney English

The Cockney accent has long been looked down upon and thought of as inferior by many. In 1909 these attitudes even received an official recognition thanks to the report of The Conference on the Teaching of English in London Elementary Schools issued by the London County Council, where it is stated that "[...] the Cockney mode of speech, with its unpleasant twang, is a modern corruption without legitimate credentials, and is unworthy of being the speech of any person in the capital city of the Empire".[] On the other hand, however, there started rising at the same time cries in defence of Cockney as, for example the following one: "The London dialect is really, especially on the South side of the Thames, a perfectly legitimate and responsible child of the old kentish tongue [...] the dialect of London North of the Thames has been shown to be one of the many varieties of the Midland or Mercian dialect, flavoured by the East Anglian variety of the same speech [...]".[] Since then, the Cockney accent has been more accepted as an alternative form of the English Language rather than an "inferior" one; in the 1950s the only accent to be heard on

the BBC (except in entertainment programmes such as Sooty) was RP, whereas nowadays many different accents, including Cockney or ones heavily influenced by it, can be heard on the BBC.[52] In a survey of 2000 people

conducted by Coolbrands in autumn 2008, Cockney was voted equal fourth coolest accent in Britain with 7% of the votes, while The Queen's English was considered the coolest, with 20% of the votes.[53] Brummie was voted least popular, receiving just 2%.

Spread of Cockney English

Studies have indicated that the heavy use of South East English accents on television and radio may be the cause of the spread of Cockney English since the 1960s.[][][][54] Cockney is more and more influential and some claim that in

the future many features of the accent may become standard.[]

Scotland

Studies have indicated that working-class adolescents in areas such as Glasgow have begun to use certain aspects of Cockney and other Anglicisms in their speech,[55] infiltrating the traditional Glasgow patter.[56] For example, TH-fronting is commonly found, and typical Scottish features such as the postvocalic /r/ are reduced.[57] Research

suggests the use of English speech characteristics is likely to be a result of the influence of London and South East England accents featuring heavily on television.[][][][54] However, such claims have been criticised.[58]

England

Th-fronting is a core part of Cockney speech.[] Th-fronting, L-vocalization and T-glottalization can now be found in every county of England (with L-vocalization being largely absent from Northern England),[59][60][61][62][63] whereas

before the 1960s the only Cockney feature that was common to all of England, except for much of East Anglia, North East England, Yorkshire and Lancashire was H-dropping.[64][65][66] However, Clive Upton has noted that

these features have occurred independently in some other dialects, such as TH-fronting in Yorkshire and L-vocalisation in parts of Scotland.[67]