Polari

Polari () is a form of slang used in Britain by some actors, circus and fairground showmen, professional wrestlers, merchant navy sailors, criminals, sex workers, and the gay subculture. There is some debate about its origins, but it can be traced back to at least the 19th century and possibly as far as the 16th century. There is a long-standing connection with Punch and Judy street puppet performers, who traditionally used Polari to converse.
Terminology.
Alternate spellings include "Parlare", "Parlary", "Palare", "Palarie", and "Palari".
Description.
Polari is a mixture of Romance (Italian or Mediterranean Lingua Franca), Romani, London slang, backslang, rhyming slang, sailor slang, and thieves' cant. Later it expanded to contain words from the Yiddish language and from 1960s drug subculture slang. It was a constantly developing form of language, with a small core lexicon of about 20 words, including: ' (good), ' (nearby), ' (face), ' (bad, in the sense of tacky or vile), ' (bad, in the sense of drab or dull, though borrowed into mainstream British English with the sense of the aforementioned '), ' (room, house, flat, i.e. room to let), ' (not, no), ' (man), ' (woman), ' (hair), ' or ' (smarten up, stylize), ' ("to be had", sexually accessible), ' (sex), and ' (see), and over 500 other lesser-known words. According to a Channel 4 television documentary, there was once (in London) an "East End" version which stressed Cockney rhyming slang and a "West End" version which stressed theatrical and Classical influences. There was some interchange between the two.
Usage.
From the 19th century on, Polari was used in London fishmarkets, the theatre, fairgrounds, and circuses, hence the many borrowings from Romani. As many homosexual men worked in theatrical entertainment it was also used among the gay subculture, at a time when homosexual activity was illegal, to disguise homosexuals from hostile outsiders and undercover policemen. It was also used extensively in the British Merchant Navy, where many gay men joined ocean liners and cruise ships as waiters, stewards, and entertainers.
William Shakespeare used the term "bona" (good, attractive) in "Henry IV, Part 2", part of the expression "bona roba" (a lady wearing an attractive outfit). However, "there's little written evidence of Polari before the 1890s," according to Peter Gilliver, associate editor of the "Oxford English Dictionary". The dictionary's entry for rozzer (policeman), for example, includes this quote from an 1893 book (P. H. Emerson's "Signor Lippo – Burnt Cork Artiste"): "If the rozzers was to see him in bona clobber they'd take him for a gun." (If the police were to see him dressed in this fine manner, they would know that he is a thief).
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 (John Payne Collier's account calls him Porchini). Mayhew provides the following:
"Punch Talk"
"" means language; name of patter. " – no food. " – no bed. " – no drink. I've ',' and ',' and, what's worse, '.' 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: "" – figures, frame, scenes, properties. " – call, or unknown tongue" ("unknown" is a reference to the "swazzle", a voice modifier used by Punch performers, the structure 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 Julian and Sandy, played by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams (introduced in the radio programme "Round the Horne", in the 1960s) ensured that some of this secret language became public knowledge. The need for a secret subculture code declined with the partial decriminalization of adult homosexual acts in England and Wales under the Sexual Offences Act 1967.
References.
James Thomson added a glossary of words he thought "obsolete" in his 1825 work "The Seasons and Castle of Indolence". He chose to write "Castle of Indolence" "In the manner of Edmund Spenser". Two words he by then thought needed explaining were: "Eke", meaning "also", pronounced like Polari's "Eek", (face); and "Gear or Geer", meaning "furniture, equipage, dress". This last usage being maintained to this day in slang, and being then-contemporary, too, by 1960's Polari-users, avoiding Thomson's stated complete obsolescence.
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). In 2019 Reaktion Books published "Fabulosa!: The Story of Polari, Britain's Secret Gay Language," also by Paul Baker.
In 2012, artists Jez Dolan and Joseph Richardson created an iPhone app which makes available the Polari lexicon and a comprehensive list of etymologies.
Entry into mainstream slang.
A number of words from Polari have entered mainstream slang. The list below includes words in general use with the meanings listed: "acdc", "barney", "blag", "butch", "camp", "khazi", "cottaging", "hoofer", "mince", "ogle", "scarper", "slap", "strides", "tod", "[rough] trade".
The Polari word ', meaning inferior or tacky, has an uncertain etymology. Michael Quinion states that it is probably from the sixteenth-century Italian word ', meaning "a despicable person". There are a number of false etymologies, many based on acronyms— 'Not Available For Fucking' , 'Normal As Fuck', etc. —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 "", 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 the television sitcom "Porridge" employed it as an alternative to expletives which were not considered broadcastable at the time. Princess Anne famously told a reporter, "Why don't you just naff off" at the Badminton horse trials in April 1982.
"" (, or ) meaning to smarten up, style or improve something, became commonplace more recently, having been used in the 2003 United States TV series "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and "What Not to Wear".
Glossary.
Numbers:
Some words or phrases that may derive from Polari (this is an incomplete list):
Usage examples.
"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", one of the Julian and Sandy sketches from "Round The Horne", written by Barry Took and Marty Feldman
"So bona to vada...oh you! Your lovely eek and your lovely riah."—taken from "Piccadilly Palare", a song by Morrissey
"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 "Parallel Lives", the memoirs of renowned gay journalist Peter Burton
In the "Are You Being Served?" episode "The Old Order Changes", Captain Peacock asks Mr Humphries to get "some strides for the omi with the naff riah" (i.e. trousers for the fellow with the unstylish hair).