Bert Cornell, a stallholder at Bethnal Green market, was condemned by critics for his decision to move away from the traditional roots of cockney slang and introduce new terms for everyday items that reflect modern tastes in poetry, and don’t actually rhyme.

“I’ve bleedin’ ‘ad enough of me old china this, and Adam and Eve that,” claimed Cornell. “When was the last time you saw anyone rhyming on telly since they got rid of that Pam Ayres bint? So instead of apples and pears for stairs, I like to say I’m just heading up;

The childhood hill of dreams, To the eiderdown oasis of peace, Far from the rumblings of discontent in the valleys of past generations, Still audible in the twilight of the landing.

“Or rumblings for short.”

Despite the outrage among urban historians, linguists and anthropologists, other stall holders have been supportive of Cornell, who comes from a famous family of unconventional cockneys — his parents were the only minimalist pearly king and queen in London, and were often seen dressed head to toe in black, with just one pearl button sewn into the lining of their jackets.

“They’re a funny lot the Cornells, but you’ve gotta live and let live, aintcha?” said Stu Belton, a greengrocer, “He’s got us all at it ‘ere, mainly ‘cos it confuses the Septics what come down with their Cockney-English dictionaries looking for an authentic East end experience. We give ‘em a bit of the old Hackney Haiku, make ‘em buy us a beer, then beat the crap out of ‘em round the back of the pub and nick their cameras. Lovely-jubbly. Now, ‘ave a butchers at these;

Apples of the earth? A strange fruit of tragedy, For Erin.

“Half a knicker a pahnd.”

Asked to comment on the growing controversy, Poet Laureate Andrew Motion said that the new slang offered evocative imagery, and a style redolent of the free verse of Auden, although he did add that he thought the market stallholders “sound like a right bunch of Berkeley hunts.”