Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels.

"A botched card game in London triggers four friends, thugs, weed-growers, hard gangsters, loan sharks and debt collectors to collide with each other in a series of unexpected events, all for the sake of weed, cash and two antique shotguns" (IMDb).

This award-winning crime comedy film directed by Guy Ritchie and released in 1998 is nothing short of a timeless masterpiece. Featuring the ludicrous talents of Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Nick Moran, and Jason Statham, anticipate the best heist film to ever grace the big screen.

A nonchalant group of small-time criminals and long-time friends; Soap, Bacon, Eddy & Tom scrape together 100,00 euros in an attempt to buy Eddy, a genius card shark, into one of Harry Lonsdales high-stakes three card brag games. However, the game is rigged in Harry's favor and the four become indebted to him. They must pay back Harry the debt that they owe in a miniscule window of time. Harry also has his eyes set upon a pair of antique shotguns. The two robbers that he sends to steal the guns foolishly sell the to a local fence, who ends up selling them to Soap, Bacon, Eddy & Tom in preparation to rob their neighbors for their recent cash in on drugs and money. And so begins the endless spiral of cataclysmic events that ensue.

Being the inordinate nerd that I am, I spent most of my time drooling over the Cockney accent and slang routinely used in the movie. The term Cockney is restricted to true Londoners. More specifically, it acts as a pejorative accent or dialect traditionally spoken by Eastern-Londoners of the working classes. It is considered to be of an inferior register to say, Posh english, yet retains a special place in my heart. Although it may be impossible for me to hear the dialect and accent itself, I have devoted myself to the study of this specific dialect, and therefore am more than capable of indicating major differences between Cockney and other major dialects in the area.

Let's get into the Cockney dialect.

You'll thank me later.

Each and every dialect that has originated in and around London and Europe has certain distinctive changes when it comes to pronunciation as well as enunciation. Simply put, depending on your location, you are most likely to pronounce words, as well as enunciate and articulate certain sounds and letters differently than others in surrounding areas.

For example, those who speak Posh english are almost guaranteed to enunciate their T's, whilst in Cockney english the T's are pronounced almost completely gutturally. UH sounds in english are largely amplified when it comes down distinguishing a true Cockney accent from a fake one. Secondly are the H's. ALthough the seeming removal of the letter H from the start of words seems to be a common trend in Europe, the Cockney accent still manages to remain individualistic. It is almost as if the H is completely neglegible: just get rid of it. This also applies to words with an H sounds, take "Who" for example. In Cockney english, it would be pronounced more like "Ooh." L sounds will likely resonate with a W sound. There is also a vastly different TH sound. As opposed to your usual TH sound, in which you would vibrate your throat, is replaced by the sound of a V. However, to make things more complex, in some words, TH will be sounded like an F instead of a V. And sometimes, the TH will not even be enunciated at all.

If you are interested in learning more about Cockney english and its pronunciation and enunciation, consult this video. I found it to be fascinating. The video also makes reference to the film "Lock, STock, and Two Smoking Barrels," which is a delightful touch.

How does Cockney english fare in comparison to the vast majority of other dialects in England? To evaluate this you need to take a closer look at the outlying areas of England and evaluate the differences in pronunciation and enunciation. Cockney english has East Anglian origins, which are commonly confused with western areas, where the R's become more dominant. Further west in Devon and Cornwall, the pronunciation goes a bit up the nose. Up north near Yorkshire and Lancashire language becomes far more flexible and fluid. Then Liverpool, which is very much related to Irish. Before I go way off track and bore half the readers to death, I'll get to one of the more interesting parts of Cockney english.

Older Cockney english, specifically in the late 90's, or around the time that the film was produced, western London was known as quite the delipidated area. Overrun by crime and class strife, certain codes were born into day-to-day speech. This would most effectively be defined as a kind of vernacular specific to Cockney english as a way of hiding speech from the wrong ears. And so, those who needed to communicate more discreetly began reciting phrases that they identified with specific words. If you have never seen the spoken words to the actual meaning, it will look like absolute gibberish. After a bit of study, you will more or less be able to denote the meaning from any phrase. Most phrases utilize end-rhyme as an indicator of the word that was meant to be conveyed. However, some phrases do not relate with rhyme to their designated word, and that is where things begin to get extremely perplexing.

Purely for your amusement, Ill leave you with a few examples:

Butcher's hook: Look

Adam and Eve: Believe

Trouble and strife: Wife (pretty sexist here)

Kettle and hob: Watch (how in the...?)

If you didn't believe me when I said that the movie scenes can be confounding on an extreme level, watch this. Good luck.