"The Complete Cant Primer"
or How to make oneself understandable to thieves, tinkers, boxers, and other disreputable persons.
This workshop will teach the participant how to make light conversation with the lower orders of mankind, and includes hands-on lessons in Thieves Cant (circa nineteenth-century), with an emphasis in Cockney (rhyming slang and back-slang), and including Romany and boxing dialects. The participant will receive elocution lessons in the Cockney accentand proper Cockney pronunciation, work with particularly useful expressions concerning activities involving the police force as well as practices of slightly questionable morality, and will commence with a lively dialog of useful, everyday phrases and translations, such as: "One of the Fancy put the down on me with the copper 'bout the dumps what I Fawney-dropped last week," or "I say, I believe one of my fellow sportsmen may have informed the police of an incident in which I may have sold an item that was not originally mine, for more than its exact market value." Etc...
This workshop does not require any extra materials or preparation other than a willingness to learn, a good ear, and a certain penchant for mischief. Will available both Saturday and Sunday, times to be determined!
It is also kid-friendly.
No Jacks, Toffs, or Swells need apply. Irish welcome.
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