A chep's a chep and a chum's a chum

Question

Couldn't find the meaning of "chep" anywhere. Is this cockney for "cheap"?

Suddenly he made a particularly vehement pronouncement, the purport of which eluded Nicole, but she saw the young woman turn dark and sinewy, and heard her answer sharply:
?After all a chep?s a chep and a chum?s a chum.?
Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (chapter53) http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/f/fitzgerald/f scott//tender/chapter53.html
Thank you.
Marius Hancu

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Couldn't find the meaning of "chep" anywhere. Is this cockney for "cheap"? Suddenly he made a particularly vehement pronouncement, ... a chum?s a chum.? Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (chapter53) http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/f/fitzgerald/f scott//tender/chapter53.html Thank you. Marius Hancu[/nq]
Nah, it's a toff saying 'chap'.
DC. 'Cripes Pinky, here come the peelers'.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Couldn't find the meaning of "chep" anywhere. Is this cockney for "cheap"? Suddenly he made a particularly vehement pronouncement, ... ?After all a chep?s a chep and a chum?s a chum.? Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (chapter53)[/nq]
"Chep" is a mispronunciation of "chap", and means "a male person", or "a fellow". I have not read Tender is the Night, but it sounds as if Fitzgerald might be trying to represent the accent of an upper-class British person of the 1920s. Few people talk like that any more in Britain. Perhaps the upper-class Bostonians also spoke like that in the 1920s, but I don't know.

I was amazed recently when I watched some old film clips (from Pathe News) of the 1945 general election. All the candidates, including many of those standing for the Labour Party, had the sort of "affected" accent that would have rendered "cheps" for "chaps". Nowadays, only Jack Straw, our Foreign Secretary, comes anywhere near to this, and even he is a pale imitation of what used to be.
Richard Chambers Leeds UK.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Couldn't find the meaning of "chep" anywhere. Is this cockney ... chum." Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (chapter53)[/nq]
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/f/fitzgerald/f scott//tender/chapter53.html
[nq:2] Thank you. Marius Hancu[/nq]
[nq:1]Nah, it's a toff saying 'chap'.[/nq]
I have an image of Lady Caroline as played by Cary Grant.
John Dean
Oxford

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/f/fitzgerald/f scott//tender/chapter53.html[/nq]
[nq:2]Nah, it's a toff saying 'chap'.[/nq]
[nq:1]I have an image of Lady Caroline as played by Cary Grant.[/nq]
I've missed that so far, but I know Tony Curtis (aka Tony Coitus) based his accent in 'Some Like it Hot' on Cary Grant. Made a change from "yonder lies de castle of moi fodder".
Doi Coi

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Couldn't find the meaning of "chep" anywhere. Is this cockney ... chum." Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (chapter53)[/nq]
[nq:1]"Chep" is a mispronunciation of "chap", and means "a male person", or "a fellow". I have not read Tender is ... our Foreign Secretary, comes anywhere near to this, and even he is a pale imitation of what used to be.[/nq]
And of course the learning of English as a Foreign Language is still strongly influenced by this, learners tending to "over-e" the (a) in words like "chap", and many foreign languages representing the (a) with an (e) when words are borrowed into or used in their language.

In fact, I'm surprised Marius didn't spot the chep>chap likelihood by himself.
Adrian

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]"cheap"?[/nq]
Que?

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Que?[/nq]
That "e" in"over-e" is (E), the "e" of "bed." As one amusing bit of evidence that

, the "a" of "cat" is close to the sound of (E), the OED usedtwo representations of the French nasal vowel found in the word "vin": (E~) and (&~). I believe that more up-to-date dictionaries of the Oxford University Press limit the representation to (E~).

Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]As one amusing bit of evidence that

, the "a" of "cat"[/nq]

is not the "a" of "cat" everywhere.
[nq:1]is close to the sound of (E), the OED used two representations of the French nasal vowel found in the word "vin": (E~) and (&~). I believe that more up-to-date dictionaries of the Oxford University Press limit the representation to (E~).[/nq]
The "British" pronunciations in OED3 use /a~/ (which is probably more defensible than using (a~) would be).
I wouldn't claim to speak particularly good French, but I feel I use (a) in English "cat" and "van" and (&~) for the French nasal vowel in "vin".
Jonathan

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]"cheap"? Fitzgerald of know. would And of course the learning ... learners tending to "over-e" the (a) in words like "chap",[/nq]
[nq:1]Que?[/nq]
Have you not encountered non-native speakers of English who tend to use an (E)-like vowel for the English short A, making "bat" sound like "bet", "man" like "men", "Stratford" like "Stretford", and "ballet dancing" like "belly dancing"? (The last two are both genuine examples where I've been momentarily confused by this.)

I think it depends on language background; in my experience Germans are very prone to this, while French, Spanish and Italian people seem not to be.
Jonathan

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I wouldn't claim to speak particularly good French, but I feel I use (a) in English "cat" and "van" and (&~) for the French nasal vowel in "vin".[/nq]
I use a nasalized version of my "vat" vowel (which appears to be between (a) and

) and not a nasalized version of my "van" vowel, which as we know is different (more in the

direction).

Steny '08!

A chep's a chep and a chum's a chum

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions