Polari

Polari (or alternatively Palare, from Italian parlare, "to talk") was a form of cant slang used in the gay subculture in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s.

Related Topics:
Italian - Cant - Slang - Gay - Subculture - Britain - 1950s - 1960s

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Polari is a mixture of Lingua franca, Italian, Romany, backslang, rhyming slang, and thieves' cant. It also contains words from the Jewish subculture which settled in the East End of London, the US forces (present in the UK during World War II) and 1960s drug-users. It was a constantly developing form of language, with a small core lexicon of about 20 words (including bona, ajax, eek, cod, naff, lattie, nanti, omi, palone, riah, zhoosh, TBH, trade, vada), with over 500 other less well-known items.

Related Topics:
Lingua franca - Romany - Backslang - Rhyming slang - Cant

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Polari was used in London fishmarkets, the theatre and the gay subculture in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, becoming more widely known from its use by two camp characters, Julian and Sandy, in Round the Horne, a popular BBC radio show which ran from 1964 to 1969. It grew up primarily to disguise homosexual activity from potentially hostile outsiders (such as undercover policemen), but also because many gay men worked in entertainment (including circuses, hence the many borrowings from Romany in Polari). It was also used extensively in the Merchant Navy, where many gay men joined cruise ships (particularly P&O) as waiters, stewards and entertainers. It was mainly used by camp or effeminate gay men, who tended to come from working class backgrounds. In a sense, they had the least to lose by being "out".

Related Topics:
Gay subculture - 1950s - 1960s - Camp - Julian and Sandy - Round the Horne - Merchant Navy - Cruise ships - Working class

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Polari had begun to fall into disuse by the late 1960s. The popularity of Julian and Sandy ensured that this secret language was public property, and the gay liberationists of the 1970s viewed it as rather degrading, divisive and politically incorrect (a lot of it was used to gossip about or criticise people, as well as discussing sexual exploits). Since the mid-1990s, with the redistribution of tapes and cds of Round the Horne and increasing academic interest, Polari underwent a slight revival. It will probably never die out completely, but new words are continually being invented and updated to refer to more recent cultural concepts - for example, the recent term "Madonna claw" means an old withered hand. 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).

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A great many words from polari have entered mainstream slang, such as "naff". This word became famous in the television sitcom Porridge in the 1970s, which employed it as an alternative to expletives which were not at the time considered broadcastable. There are a number of possible origins of the term "naff", many based around acronyms - Not Available For Fucking, Normal As Fuck - though these are probably backronyms. The term was originally used to dismissively refer to heterosexual people. Porridge also introduced a verb sense: "naff off!", later famously used by Princess Anne in 1982. http://blogs.salon.com/0004217/2004/10/29.html

Related Topics:
Television - Sitcom - Porridge - 1970s - Backronym - Princess Anne

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See also: Cockney rhyming slang

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