Polari (from Italian parlare 'to talk') is a form of slang or cant historically used in Britain by some actors, circus and fairground showmen, professional wrestlers, merchant navy sailors, criminals, sex workers, and, particularly, the gay subculture. There is some debate about its origins,^[2] but it can be traced to at least the 19th century and possibly as early as the 16th century.^[3] Polari has a long-standing connection with Punch and Judy street puppeteers, who traditionally used it to converse.^[4]

Terminology

Alternative spellings include Parlare, Parlary, Palare, Palarie and Palari.

Description

Polari is a mixture of Romance (Italian^[5] or Mediterranean Lingua Franca), Romani, rhyming slang, sailors' slang and thieves' cant, which later expanded to contain words from Yiddish and 1960s drug subculture slang. It was constantly evolving, with a small core lexicon of about 20 words, including: bona (good^[6]), ajax (nearby), eek (face), cod (bad, in the sense of tacky or vile), naff (bad, in the sense of drab or dull, though borrowed into mainstream British English with the sense of the aforementioned cod), lattie (room, house, flat, i.e. room to let), nanti (not, no), omi (man), palone (woman), riah (hair), zhoosh or tjuz (smarten up, stylise), TBH ('to be had', sexually accessible), trade (sex) and vada (see), and over 500 other, lesser-known words.^[7] There were once two distinct forms of Polari 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.^[8]

Usage

From the 19th century on, Polari was used in London fish markets, theatres, fairgrounds, and circuses, hence the many borrowings from Romani.^[9] As many homosexual men worked in theatrical entertainment, it was also used among the gay subculture to disguise homosexuals from hostile outsiders and undercover policemen. It was also used extensively in the British Merchant Navy, where many gay men worked as waiters, stewards, and entertainers.^[10]

Although William Shakespeare used the term bona (good, attractive) in Henry IV, Part 2 as part of the expression bona roba (a woman wearing an attractive outfit),^[11] "little written evidence of Polari before the 1890s" exists according to Oxford English Dictionary associate editor Peter Gilliver. The dictionary's entry for rozzer (policeman) includes a quote from P. H. Emerson's 1893 book Signor Lippo – Burnt Cork Artiste:^[12] "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").^[11]

The almost identical Parlyaree has been spoken in fairgrounds since at least the 17th century^[13] and is still used by show travellers in England and Scotland. As theatrical booths, circus acts, and menageries were once common parts of European fairs, it is likely that the roots of Polari/Parlyaree lie in the period before both theatre and circus became independent of fairgrounds. The Parlyaree spoken on fairgrounds tends to borrow much more from Romani, as well as other languages and cants spoken by travelling people, such as thieves' cant and back slang.

Henry Mayhew gave an account of Polari as part of an interview with a Punch and Judy showman in the 1850s. The discussion he recorded references Punch's arrival in England, crediting these early shows to an Italian performer called Porcini (John Payne Collier's account calls him Porchini, a literal rendering of the Italian pronunciation).^[14] 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.^[4]

There are additional accounts of particular words that relate to puppet performance: "'Slumarys' – figures, frame, scenes, properties. 'Slum' – call, or unknown tongue"^[4] ("unknown" is a reference to the "swazzle", a voice modifier used by Punch performers, the structure of which was a longstanding trade secret).

Decline

Polari had begun to fall into disuse among the gay subculture by the late 1960s. The popularity of the BBC radio comedy Round the Horne, with its camp gay characters Julian and Sandy, ensured that some of the Polari terms they used became public knowledge.^[15] The need for a secret means of communication in the subculture also declined with the partial decriminalisation of adult homosexual acts in England and Wales under the Sexual Offences Act 1967.

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 naff, meaning inferior or tacky, has an uncertain etymology. Michael Quinion says it is probably from the 16th-century Italian word gnaffa, meaning "a despicable person".^[16] There are a number of false etymologies, many based on backronyms—"Not Available For Fucking", "Normal As Fuck", etc. The phrase "naff off" was used euphemistically in place of "fuck off" along with the intensifier "naffing" in Keith Waterhouse's Billy Liar (1959).^[17] Usage of "naff" increased in the 1970s when the television sitcom Porridge employed it as an alternative to expletives which were not broadcastable at the time.^[16] Princess Anne allegedly told a reporter to "naff off" at the Badminton horse trials in April 1982,^[18] but it has since been claimed^{[by whom?]} that this was a censored version of what she actually said.^[19]

"Zhoosh" /ˈʒʊʒ/;^[20] alternatively spelled "zhuzh," "jeuje," and a number of other variety spellings ^[21]), meaning to smarten up, style or improve something, became commonplace in the mid-2000s, having been used in the 2003 United States TV series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and What Not to Wear.^{[citation needed]} "Jush", an alternative spelling of the word, was popularised by drag queen Jasmine Masters after her appearance on the seventh series of RuPaul's Drag Race in 2015.^[22][23]

In popular culture

• James Thomson added a glossary of words he thought "obsolete" in his 1825 work The Seasons and Castle of Indolence.^{[clarification needed]} He chose to write "Castle of Indolence" "In the manner of Edmund Spenser". Two words he thought needed explaining were "eke", meaning "also", pronounced like Polari's "eek" (face); and "gear or geer", meaning "furniture, equipage, dress". The latter is still used in slang and has thus avoided obsolescence.
• Polari (spelt Polare) was popularised on the 1960s BBC radio show Round the Horne starring Kenneth Horne. Camp Polari-speaking characters Julian and Sandy were played by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams.^[24]
• In the Doctor Who serial Carnival of Monsters from 1973, Vorg, a showman, believing the Doctor also to be a showman, attempts to converse with him in Polari. The Doctor says he does not understand him.^[25]
• In 1987 the character Ralph Filthy, a theatrical agent played by Nigel Planer in the BBC TV series Filthy Rich & Catflap, regularly used Polari.
• In 1990 Morrissey released the single "Piccadilly Palare" containing a number of lyrics in Polari and exploring a subculture in which Polari was used. "Piccadilly Palare" is also the first song on Morrissey's compilation album Bona Drag, whose title is also taken from Polari.
• In 1990, in Issue #35 of Grant Morrison's run of Doom Patrol, the character Danny the Street is introduced; they speak English heavily flavoured with Polari, with "bona to vada" ("good to see [you]") being their favourite way to greet friends.
• In the 1998 film Velvet Goldmine, two characters speak Polari in a London nightclub. The scene has English subtitles.
• 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 2015, filmmakers Brian Fairbairn and Karl Eccleston made Putting on the Dish, a short film entirely in Polari.^[26]
• The 2016 David Bowie album Blackstar contains a song, "Girl Loves Me", that uses Polari (and also Nadsat).^[27]
• In 2017, a service at Westcott House, Cambridge (a Church of England theological college) was conducted in Polari; trainee priests held the service to commemorate LGBT History Month; following media attention, Chris Chivers, the principal, expressed his regret.^{[28][29][30][31]}
• In the 2017 EP Ricky, gay singer Sakima used Polari.^[32]
• In 2019, the first opera in Polari, The Sins of the Cities of the Plain (based on the book of the same title), premiered at Espacio Turina in Seville, Spain. The libretto was written in Polari by librettist and playwright Fabrizio Funari and the music is by Germán Alonso. Niño de Elche played the main role. The opera was produced and performed by instrumental ensemble Proyecto OCNOS, formed by Pedro Rojas-Ogáyar and Gustavo A. Domínguez Ojalvo, with the support of ICAS Sevilla, Fundación BBVA and The Librettist.^[33]
• The same year, the English-language localisation of the Japanese video game Dragon Quest Builders 2 included a character called Jules, who spoke in Polari with non-standard capitalisation.^[34][35]
• Also in 2019, Reaktion Books published Fabulosa!: The Story of Polari, Britain's Secret Gay Language, by Paul Baker.^[36][37]
• In the 2020 film Roald & Beatrix: The Tail of the Curious Mouse, a young Roald Dahl, running away from home, meets a man (played by Bill Bailey) who speaks in Polari.
• Richard Milward's 2023 novel Man-Eating Typewriter is written almost entirely in Polari, in the form of fictional memoirs by the character Raymond M. Novak.
• In the fourth episode of PBS’s Funny Woman (2024), characters discuss BBC Radio using Polari in Round the Horne and visit a comedy club where gay and entertainment-industry characters converse in Polari.

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

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 Parallel Lives, the memoirs of renowned gay journalist Peter Burton

Translation: "As young men...we would style our hair, powder our faces, climb into our great new clothes, don our shoes and wander/walk off to some great little bar. In the bar we would stand around with our gay companions, look at the great 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."

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).^[49]