Polari - The Story of Britain's Gay Slang
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- Опубликовано: 27 июл 2024
- Author and academic Paul Baker of Lancaster University discusses a form of gay slang known as Polari that was spoken in Britain. It was a secret type of language used mainly by gay men and some lesbians and members of the trans, drag and other communities in the United Kingdom in the 20th century until it largely died out by the early 1970s.
At a time when homosexual acts between two men had not yet been decriminalised, it allowed people to chat freely in public places, as well as letting them identify each other. Words like lallies (legs), omi-palone (gay man) and bona (good) were commonly used in private drinking clubs in the 1950s and 1960s as well as in the theatre. This interview outlines Polari's historical roots, its rise to popularity in the 1960s radio program Round the Horne and its eventual fall into obscurity.
Professor Paul Baker of Lancaster University did his PhD on Polari and has written books on it including Polari - The Lost Language of Gay Men and Fantabulosa: A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang.
Professor Paul Baker explores whether Polari was actually a language in its own right or more a form of gay slang, cant or dialect. He will explain how it came about and how and why it has died out. And yes he will also remind us of some of the words that feature in Polari that many of us still use today.
Paul Baker assesses the chances that Polari might make a comeback, arguing whatever its future holds, this lost language represents an important part of gay social history and should not be forgotten. #polari #pridehistorygroup #sydney
As a Lesbian I can say I used Polari frequently when I lived in Chester between 1975 and 1982. Mostly with other LGBT friends and allies when we were out in the streets/other straight venues and to let someone I had 'clocked' as LGBT know I was a 'friend of Dorothy' too. Additionally we sometimes used it in Gay venues just for fun. In 1977 Chester CHE opened the Chester Gay Centre, which as well as housing the local Gay Switchboard also acted as a drop-in centre. We then started a lending library of LGBT books there including 'The Queen's Vernacular' a Polari-English Dictionary.
Hi there, thank you for sharing your own memories and experiences. It is great to hear people's stories and it is good to hear from other groups as well as gay men who spoke and understood Polari. It is interesting to hear that you were using Polari into the 1980s. Thanks also for the local history. Do you ever speak it now or bits of it? Thanks again )
Very rarely these days and if I do, just for fun really. Or to show that I know it. I think the thing about Chester is that in those days the Gay Scene was, compared to the big cities, fairly small. So the women and men had to stick together. Separatism was a luxury we couldn't afford, so that partly explains our knowing some words in Polari.
ciderscot Thank you for these fascinating memories. It's great to hear from those who spoke it and to have confirmation that it wasn't just gay men and that there were other groups who spoke and understood it. Many thanks :)
I just found out about Polari language recently and it’s really interesting. I am fascinated by it. Is there any way I can find out more about the language because I’m thinking to incorporate Polari language in my graduation short film script this year? It’s a short fiction inspired by lobotomy surgery from my first research idea. I’m looking forward to hearing from any of you.
Henry x
ciderscot I used to go to a LGBT Youth Group in Chester called Utopia and also one in Ellesmere Port it was at a place called The Hub back when I was 13 and 14 in 2007 and 2008 it was a brilliant place and Chesters a gorgeous town
As a straight kid growing up in and around the West End 'The Dilly' I learnt Polari. In the hairdressing trade a lot of Polari words and phrases were used e.g a newly apprenticed hairdresser spent their first 6 months 'vardaring' watching a top stylist .
Fabulous documentary, thank you. We still use Polari quite actively in the UK houses of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
NIce to see an interview with Paul. He is something of an unsung innovator in the early days of "the online". Morag is watching over you, Paul!
Great stuff! I've just bought your book FABULOSA. My parents [basic working class Scots] listened to Round The Horn and laughed their socks off. I could tell they didn't understand a word - but they enjoyed it and laughed. I, a mere 12 year old Gay boy, was intrigued!
Also I didn't pay too much attention as to why Morrissey named one of his albums "Bona Drag" even though i'm a massive fan! But it does contain the track "piccadilly palare" which up until recently I didn't know was used as slang in the 50's and 60's in the gay communuity! So it's all been a bit of an education for me really you learn something new everyday! Thanks for this upload as even though I don't think it should be brought back people need to be educated about it so it never gets lost and forgotten!!!!
As a kid growing up in the East End of London and reasonably versed in Cockney Rhyming Slang, I recognise a lot of the words, we used a lot of the words too, such as "Naff", we never knew what it meant in Polari but to us it meant less than adequate a bit useless. I do remember "Round the Horn" it was very popular in straight houses as they were unaware of the Polari language. But all languages are Bona aren't they duck?
Fascinating! I'm an American who was based out of Heathrow with Pan Am in '90/'91. I don't remember specific examples but I think I encountered remnants of Polari, in a mostly camp context, during my fondly remembered time in the UK. Thanks. It's important for us to know our history!
Ive always enjoyed looking at and hearing how languge and slang mix and mingle, how subculture terms and opressed minority languages creep into majority language in the most interesting ways. Its been interesting to learn about polari in this interview and will he looking more into it
21:12: "I believe there was a dentist who named his practice after Polari a few years ago..."
His 'PRACTICE'? Ooo, inee bold!
Bona work Paul, bona work William. Dolly omes both.
Thanks so much Keith :)
Many Polari words were used quite commonly in inner city, working class Birmingham. A very common phrase used, when someone was being disingenuous or deliberately obscure was "Don't come y Polari with me". My homosexual uncle, used to get annoyed, even when his boyfriend used the occasional Polari phrase. Hed bite on his long cigarette holder and tell him he was as common as muck and a dirty dish. I never particularly associated the words with homosexuals, until the early mid 70's, when me and a GF used to quite often visit gay bars. Some of the older gays were surprised when they realised I understood what they were saying.
Polari fascinates me because when I was in college, in the mid to late 1970s, my circle friends had our own code words. It never came anywhere near being a language, but it was somewhat evolved. The words were based on funny incidents, inside jokes, etc. Watching these videos, I have learned that a few of the words in our slang were actualy polari, which is surprising, given that our college was in south Georgia, USA, but most of it evolved from our own experiences. All this reminds me that throughout the entire world, there must be many thousands of these private "languages," and how accepted languages evolve.
Here I am in 2020 doing a presentation on Speech Styles and Homosexuality for University. Our library doesn't hold Paul Baker's books so this is immensely helpful!
I wrote a piece on Chester in 1976 for Gay News, as part of the Gay Britain series. Chester was by far my favourite 'gay scene': genuinely friendly and relaxed. I wasn't aware of polari being spoken, but I couldn't fail to notice how gay men and lesbians mixed, and enjoyed being homi-palome together.
Forty years on, I still remember that great weekend in Chester and also, just before I came to live in Australia thirty years ago, a more happy days at that city's music festival.
We would have been either using the top bar at The Bear & Billett pub or Melanies Nightclub for our CHE Sunday night discos by then Keith. Of course rather fittingly the late Denis Lemon opened Chester Gay Centre in 1977.
ciderscot Thanks for all these amazing memories which help broaden our knowledge of our history as well as Polari :)
It also has links to Gypsie of Romani descent with words cutting across several worlds derived similar, like Bona which they have traced to similar use in Roman times, it seems like transient people carried parts of it along their travels, and it got to where it was most famous with Julian and sandy using it on Radio and television by the actors Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick
a few wrods did get enveloped into our modern use, Naff and Camp for example and more recently" Zhuhz ", but alos scarper, Khazi, ogle ,
Polaris was used by my family we where carnival people not just a gay language
Really fantastic video! I’m so interested in topics like this and definitely want to check out his books.
Wonderful interview. Thank you.
I would love to learn to speak Polari. If not just to acknowledge the history of gay culture.
Neil McKimm Even though not from the UK, as a gay man I appreciate this
I'm not even a native english speaker but i really want to learn it
Me to
What is "Gay culture" supposed to be then? It isn't all camp, drag queens and polari. :-(
Fascinating, thank you
Can confirm Polari was used by lgbti people in Australia from colonial times into the 80s very early 90s
In the 1920s & 1930s, my grandmother’s uncle was gay and living in Darlinghurst, running a boarding house with his mother and younger sister.
Morrissey obviously has an interest. Piccadilly Palare, Bona Drag etc
In the video he seems to be emphasize that it shouldn't come back as a spoken language but from learning about the context it was used I find myself thinking it would be useful where I live now. I am both gay and transgender and live in a very lgbt+ intolerant part of the us and every lgbt+ person I know who lives here is at least partially closeted for many reasons. So, I think there is a culture for it but just doesn't know it exists.
Same! I'm trapped in Texas, am queer and trans, and I love languages and history. We need to acknowledge how far we perhaps *haven't* come and how conditions still exist for a Polari revival.
Growing up in the Fifties and Sixties I can remember my Mum and Dad laughing at Julian and Sandy without having a clue what they were talking about. I think it's important to keep our history alive. Gay lives matter too.
thank you very much for this
Paul Baker - an academic and also a honey. Phwoar....
He's gorgeous.
I'm an older gay man in Australia, and have always had an interest in Polari and the conservation of gay history.
Having said that, I found it somewhat outrageous to search in Google Play Books and find the Polari dictionary selling for $179AU.
I completely understand that this is a lifetime of work, and thoroughly researched, but the pricetag makes it highly improbable that this would be accessible to anyone other than a scholar.
If you wish to keep the language alive, make it accessible. This is my opinion only. Everyone is welcome to their own.
I believe there is an online version of it. Also $179 is a rip off but I’m sure it’s a second hand price not the original price (yikes if it’s the original price)
I met a Polari speaker in Southampton in the early 1980s - not sure how many words he knew, but certainly all the core words; and most of the gay men I met back then knew some Polari. This was my first encounter with Polari. I’d have thought that AIDS must have had a disastrous effect on the transmission of the language. I didn’t encounter Julian and Sandy till the early 1990s.
Very interesting. Does it really have a grammar though? Its such a fun language though, needs a revival. Many languages are now being conserved, for example the whistling language of the island of La Gomera (Canary Islands). That isn't a proper language either, its based on Spanish. But they are teaching it in the schools there now. Perhaps there will be more formal efforts made by the gay community to pass it on. You've done your part there! Thank you!
Does Rupert Holmes use Polari in his 1979 song Escape the Pina Colada song?
Myself and my three daughters have at least a smattering of Polari......many people of my age would have heard some of the words from 'Round the Horne' (1960's)......it was a Sunday lunchtime radio show and I would think most people listening would not know the context or background......my girls grew up listening to the tapes of this show.
I had no idea that "naff" meant Not Available For Fucking originally! There is another video on here that explains this!!!!
On a side note, that sticker or circular glare (or whatever it is) on his mirror is driving me crazy. I keep thinking it's my cursor or something.
He seems a really nice guy and cute
I always thought POLARI was a song by Dean martin LOL
I would love to have learned Polari :D
To what degree was Polari spoken in places outside of Britain, such as Canada, United States, India, etc.?
Lancaster! Polari is so interesting, a worthy phd
This might sound stupid, but wouldn't people reconise the language without knowing the words and know the people speaking were gay anyway?
sjewitt22 I imagine some people such as police would probably would probably recognise a few words so using it could be risky in itself which added to the secrecy. At the same time it helped other gay and bisexual men identify other gay and bi men.
It's the 1950s, there's no internet...TV is the buttoned-down Beeb, how is the average person going to know? OTOH agree with uploader that some of the police would have recognized it.
i'm sure cops would have to follow them and catch them when they had sex cause its the act which was/is illegal, not being gay itself
I remember someone once saying ... "full fab bona girlfriend, vada on polari" ... I have never known what that meant but it always stuck with me. And now i know that it was an actual thing. An actual language.
Maybe if it isnt classed as a full language, its definitely a "code language" or secret code,
How do you know the difference between slang and Polari?
80's Example: Miss thang was out taking a walk in the park trolling about and got awarded the silver bracelets (handcuffs) from incognito Judy Justice (undercover police) and now she’s cat walking in the plastic sandals (standard issue prison flip flops) down at Lucy Sterrett’s Tower (Jail). You know that fish is scared for his life, they eat them guppies (young) up like that down there.
Rubbish, this is not Polari of the 80s. Judy Justice, if referring to Judge Judy, was not around then and the police were referred to as Hilda Handcuffs or Lilly Law. Don't know how jail is called Sterrett's Tower. never heard that in London and the last sentence makes no sense to me at all.
This was 80s way before the TV show and in the USA
Polari was NOT a gay dialect. It was a dialect used by carnis, wrestlers, actors and so on. But ALSO used by gay people. To say it was a gay dialect is wrong. It was a dialect ALSO used by homosexuals. But it was also used by many, many groups and people not homosexual nor having anything to do with homosexuals.
TheTaterTotP80 do you have any evidence? you seem upset
Roger Smith he only mentioned prison, and prison gays could've been the ones who started/used it
Travis Medina my family used the language that where not gay but where from the carnival background so it's not just a gay thing