Polari

Polari (or alternatively Parlare, Parlary, Palare, Palarie, Palari; from Italian parlare, "to talk") is a form of cant slang used in Britain by actors, circus and fairground showmen, criminals, prostitutes, A. R. E., and by the gay subculture. It was popularised in the 1960s by camp characters Julian and Sandy in the popular BBC radio show Round the Horne. There is some debate about its origins, but it can be traced back to at least the 19th century, and possibly the 16th century. There is a longstanding connection with Punch and Judy street puppet performers who traditionally used Polari to converse.

Description

Polari is a mixture of Romance (Italian language or Mediterranean Lingua Franca), London slang, Back slang, rhyming slang, sailor slang, and thieves' cant. Later it expanded to contain words from the Yiddish language, from the US forces (present in the UK during World War II) and from 1960s drug users. It was a constantly developing form of language, with a small core lexicon of about 20 words (including (including bona, ajax, eek, cod, naff, lattie, nanti, omi, palone, riah, zhoosh (tjuz), TBH, trade, vada), and over 500 other lesser-known words.

Usage

Polari was used in London fishmarkets, the theatre, and fairgrounds and circuses, hence the many borrowings from Romany. As many gay men worked in theatrical entertainment it was also used amongst the gay subculture, at a time when homosexual acts were illegal, to disguise homosexual activity from hostile outsiders and undercover policemen. It was also used extensively in the Merchant Navy, where many gay men joined cruise ships as waiters, stewards and entertainers. On one hand, it would be used as a means of cover, to allow gay subjects to be discussed aloud without being understood; on the other hand, it was also used by some, particularly the most visibly camp and effeminate, as a further way of asserting their identity.

The almost identical Parlyaree has been spoken in fairgrounds since at least the 17th century and continues to be used by show travellers in England and Scotland. As theatrical booths, circus acts and menageries were once a common part of European fairs it is likely that the roots of Polari/Parlyaree lie in the period before both theatre and circus became independent of the fairgrounds. The Parlyaree spoken on fairgrounds tends to borrow much more from Romany, as well as other languages and argots spoken by travelling people, such as cant and backslang.

Henry Mayhew gave a verbatim account of Polari as part of an interview with a Punch and Judy showman in the 1850s. The discussion he recorded references the arrival of Punch in England, crediting these early shows to a performer from Italy called Porcini (see also John Payne Collier's account of Porsini-Payne Collier calls him Porchini-in Punch and Judy). Mayhew provides the following:

Punch Talk
"'Bona Parle' means language; name of patter. 'Yeute munjare' - no food. 'Yeute lente' - no bed. 'Yeute bivare' - no drink. I've 'yeute munjare,' and 'yeute bivare,' and, what's worse, 'yeute lente.' This is better than the costers' talk, because that ain't no slang and all, and this is a broken Italian, and much higher than the costers' lingo. We know what o'clock it is, besides.

There are additional accounts of particular words that relate to puppet performance: "'Slumarys' - figures, frame, scenes, properties. 'Slum' - call, or unknown tongue" ("unknown" is a reference to the "swazzle", a voice modifier used by Punch performers, the composition of which was a longstanding trade secret).

Decline in use

Polari had begun to fall into disuse amongst the gay subculture by the late 1960s. The popularity of the Julian and Sandy characters ensured that this secret language became public property, and the gay liberationists of the 1970s viewed it as rather degrading, divisive and politically incorrect as it was often used to gossip about, or criticise, others, as well as to discuss sexual exploits. In addition, the need for a secret subculture code declined with the legalisation of adult homosexual acts in England and Wales in 1967.

Contemporary usage

Since the mid-1990s, with the redistribution of tapes and CDs of Round The Horne and increasing academic interest, Polari has undergone something of a revival. New words are being invented and updated to refer to more recent cultural concepts.

In 1990 Morrissey titled an album Bona Drag-Polari for "nice outfit"-and released the single "Piccadilly Palare" that same year.

Also in 1990, comic book writer Grant Morrison created the Polari-speaking character Danny the Street (based on Danny La Rue), a sentient transvestite street, for the comic Doom Patrol.

The 1998 film Velvet Goldmine, which chronicles a fictional retelling of the rise and fall of glam rock, contains a 60s flashback in which a group of characters converse in Polari, while their words are humorously subtitled below.

In 2002, two books on Polari were published, Polari: The Lost Language of Gay Men, and Fantabulosa: A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang (both by Paul Baker). Also in 2002, hip hop music artist Juha released an album called Polari, with the chorus of the title song written entirely in the slang.

Characters in Will Self's story, Foie Humain, the first part of Liver: A Fictional Organ with a Liver, use Polari.

Comedians Rik Mayall, David Walliams and Matt Lucas still incorporate Polari in their comedy to this day.

Entry into standard English

Many words from Polari have entered mainstream slang; some recent examples are:

Naff

The Polari word naff, meaning inferior or tacky, has an uncertain etymology. Michael Quinion states that it is probably from the 16th-century Italian word gnaffa, meaning "a despicable person".

There are a number of folk etymologies, many based on acronyms-Not Available For Fucking, Normal As Fuck-though these are backronyms. More likely etymologies include northern UK dialect naffhead, naffin, or naffy, a simpleton or blockhead; niffy-naffy, inconsequential, stupid, or Scots nyaff, a term of contempt for any unpleasant or objectionable person. An alternative etymology may lie in the Romany naflo, itself rooted in násfalo, meaning ill.

The phrase "naff off" was used euphemistically in place of "fuck off" along with the intensifier "naffing" in Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse (1959).

Usage of "naff" increased in the 1970s when television sitcom Porridge employed it as an alternative to expletives which were not considered broadcastable at the time. In 1982 Princess Anne was reported as telling news photographers to "naff off!" after falling from her horse at the Badminton Horse Trials, although possibly this was self-censorship by the reporters and she actually used "Fuck off!" Ed Buziak one of the photographers, states that "she certainly burned our ears with that or a very similar sounding couple of words"

Zhoosh

"Zhoosh", meaning to smarten up, style or improve something, has become commonplace more recently, having been used on the TV series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and What Not to Wear. Its initial consonant has led new users to generate variant spellings such as "zoosh", "soozh", "tszuj", "zhoozh" etc. In some pronunciations, the word begins and ends with the same phoneme, the voiced postalveolar fricative, which can be heard as the "s" sound in the words "television" and "pleasure". Others pronounce the final consonant like the "sh" in "push".

Polari glossary

Word	Definition
ajax	nearby (from adjacent?)
alamo	hot for you/him
aunt nell	listen, hear
aunt nells	ears
aunt nelly fakes	earrings
aunt nell danglers	earrings
barney	a fight
basket	the bulge of male genitals through clothes
batts	shoes
bibi	bisexual
bitch	effeminate or passive gay man
bijou	small/little (means "jewel" in French)
blag	pick up
blue	code word for "homosexual"
bod	body
bona	good bona nochy - goodnight (from Italian - buona notte)
bonaroo	wonderful, excellent
bungery	pub, this comes from the English word for the closure on a barrel.
butch	masculine; masculine lesbian
buvare	a drink (from Italian - bere or old-fashioned Italian - bevere or Lingua Franca bevire)
cackle	talk/gossip
camp	effeminate (possibly from Italian campare "exaggerate, make stand out")
capello/capella	hat (from Italian - cappello)
carsey	toilet, also spelt khazi
carts/cartso	penis (from Italian - cazzo)
cats	trousers
charper	to search (from Italian - chiappare - to catch)
charpering omi	policeman
charver	to shag/a shag (sexual intercourse) (from Italian - chiavare)
chicken	young man
clobber	clothes
cod	naff, vile
cottage	a public lavatory used for sexual encounters
cottaging	seeking or obtaining sexual encounters in public lavatories
cove	friend
crimper	hairdresser
dally	sweet, kind. Possibly an alternate pronunciation of dolly.
dilly boy	a male prostitute
dinari	money (perhaps from Italian denaro)
dish	butt(ocks)
dolly	pretty, nice, pleasant
dona	woman (perhaps from Italian donna or Lingua Franca dona)
dorcas	term of endearment, 'one who cares'. The Dorcas Society was a ladies' church association of the nineteenth century, which made clothes for the poor.
drag	clothes, esp. women's clothes (prob from Romani - indraka - skirt)
doss	bed
ecaf	face (backslang)
eek	face (abbreviation of ecaf)
ends	hair
esong	nose (backslang)
fantabulosa	fabulous/wonderful
feele/freely/filly	child/young (from the Italian figlio, for son)
fruit	queen
funt	pound
gelt	money (Yiddish)
handbag	money
hoofer	dancer
HP (homy polone)	effeminate gay man
jarry	food, also mangarie (from Italian mangiare or Lingua Franca mangiaria)
jubes	breasts
kaffies	trousers
khazi	toilet, also spelt carsey
lacoddy	body
lallies (lylies)	legs
lallie tappers	feet
latty/lattie	room, house or flat
lills	hands
lilly	police (Lilly Law)
lyles	legs (prob. from "Lisle stockings")
lucoddy	body
luppers	fingers (Yiddish - lapa - paw)
mangarie	food, also jarry (from Italian mangiare or Lingua Franca mangiaria)
martinis	hands
measures	money
meese	plain, ugly (from Yiddish "meeiskeit, in turn from Hebrew ?????? repulsive, loathsome, despicable, abominable)
meshigener	nutty, crazy, mental (from Yiddish, in turn from Hebrew ????????? crazy)
metzas	money (Italian -mezzi "means, wherewithal")
mince	walk (affectedly)
naff	awful, dull, hetero
nanti	not, no, none (Italian - niente)
national handbag	dole, welfare, government financial assistance
ogle	look, admire
ogles	eyes
oglefakes	glasses
omi	man (from Romance)
omi-palone	effeminate man, or homosexual
onk	nose (cf "conk")
orbs	eyes
palare pipe	telephone ("talk pipe")
palliass	back
park, parker	give
plate	feet; to fellate
palone	woman (Italian paglione - "straw mattress", [viz. old Cant "hay-bag" = woman])
palone-omi	lesbian
pots	teeth
remould	sex change
riah/riha	hair (backslang)
riah zhoosher	hairdresser
rough trade	a working class or blue collar sex partner or potential sex partner; a tough, thuggish or potentially violent sex partner
scarper	to run off (from Italian scappare, to escape or run away or from rhyming slang Scapa Flow, to go)
schlumph	drink
scotch	leg (scotch egg=leg)
screech	mouth, speak
sharpy	policeman (from - charpering omi)
sharpy polone	policewoman
shush	steal (from client)
shush bag	hold-all
shyker/shyckle	wig (mutation of the Yiddish sheitel)
slap	makeup
so	homosexual (e.g. "Is he 'so'?")
stimps	legs
stimpcovers	stockings, hosiery
strides	trousers
strillers	piano
switch	wig
thews	thighs
tober	road (a Shelta word, Irish bóthar)
todd (Sloanne)	alone
tootsie trade	sex between two passive homosexuals (as in: 'I don't do tootsie trade')
trade	sex, sex-partner, potential sex-partner
troll	to walk about (esp. looking for trade)
vada/varder	to see (from Italian - dialect vardare = guardare - look at) vardered - vardering
vera (lynn)	gin
vogue	cigarette (from Lingua Franca - fogus - "fire, smoke")
vogueress	female smoker
willets	breasts
yews	(from French "yeux") eyes
zhoosh	style hair, tart up, mince (Romani - "zhouzho" - clean, neat) zhoosh our riah - style our hair
zhooshy	showy

Polari in use

"Omies and palones of the jury, vada well at the eek of the poor ome who stands before you, his lallies trembling." (Taken from "Bona Law", a sketch from Round The Horne, written by Barry Took and Marty Feldman)

(Translation: "Men and women of the jury, look well at the face of the poor man who stands before you, his legs trembling.")

"So bona to vada...oh you! Your lovely eek and your lovely riah." (Taken from "Piccadilly Palare", a song by Morrissey)

(Translation: "So good to see...oh you! Your lovely face and your lovely hair.")

"As feely ommes...we would zhoosh our riah, powder our eeks, climb into our bona new drag, don our batts and troll off to some bona bijou bar. In the bar we would stand around with our sisters, vada the bona cartes on the butch omme ajax who, if we fluttered our ogle riahs at him sweetly, might just troll over to offer a light for the unlit vogue clenched between our teeth." (Taken from the memoirs of renowned gay journalist Peter Burton, Parallel Lives)

(Translation: "As young men...we would style our hair, powder our faces, climb into our fabulous new clothes, don our shoes and wander/walk off to some fabulous little bar. In the bar we would stand around with our gay companions, look at the fabulous genitals on the butch man nearby who, if we fluttered our eyelashes at him sweetly, might just wander/walk over to offer a light for the unlit cigarette clenched between our teeth.")

Bibliography

Baker, Paul (2002) Fantabulosa: A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang. London: Continuum: ISBN 0-8264-5961-7
Baker, Paul (2002) Polari: The Lost Language of Gay Men. London: Routledge: ISBN 0-415-26180-5
Elmes, Simon & Rosen, Michael (2002) Word of Mouth. Oxford University Press: ISBN 0-19-866263-7