Protect Polari!
From ‘Friend Application Vol. 4’ by Millicent Penner
“Bona to vada your dolly old eek!” exclaims the omi-polone to his zhooshed cove. Now, as an omi, this cove is naff. However, in drag, she’s just fantabulosa! Titivating herself with fortuni slap and a zhooshed up switch. She’s one hell of a hoofer and can lau her lappers on the strillers bona too! Now, I’m sure that makes zero sense. In fact, it would be impressive if it did. Welcome to the fabulous hidden world of Polari- the fascinating dialect used by the subcultures of blue omis (gay men) and palone-omis (lesbians) in Britain for much of the 20th-century.Emerging in the late-19th century, Polari- also spelt Palari, Parlare and Parlaree- was used by increasingly criminalised gay subcultures until the 19th-century. The legislative prohibition of homosexuality began with King Henry VIII’s 1553 Buggery Act and was strengthened even further by the Labouchère Amendment of 1865. How were queer individuals to communicate if any mere suggestion could lock them in prison for life? Polari surfaced as the answer. Inherently camp and championed by, as Paul Baker describes in his 2004 book Fantabulosa: A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang, “fiercely camp working-class queens,” the language allowed queer people to succinctly identify each other whilst averting the wrath of Lilly Law (the police).
It drew upon a wide variety of vocabularies to become indecipherable to the omior homees (heterosexuals) out there: the Elizabethan Thieves Cant; the 18th-century ‘Molly Slang’; cockney rhyming slang; back-slang; Yiddish; and Lingua Franca, to name a few. Perhaps most interestingly was the influence of the similarly named ‘Parlyaree’, a form of slang used by the travelling circus in Europe through the 19th-century. Stigmatised everywhere they went for fear of causing trouble in the simple, devoutly Christian communities they hoped to entertain, there is a distinct parallel here to the treatment of queer subcultures in history. The nomadic nature of the carnival explains why Polari also contains elements of French, Spanish and, particularly, Italian. Buvare (drink) comes from the Italian bevere; camp may come from campare which means ‘to stand out, exaggerate’; and bona nochy (goodnight) derives from Italy’s buona notte. ‘Parlyaree’ was discovered by London’s gay actors, dancers and chorus boys and gradually became used in the queer pockets of the city. The tongue made its way out of the West End to be spoken by the Dilly Boys (Piccadilly Circus prostitutes), East End dock workers and the ‘so’ (gay) members of the British Merchant Navy.
Polari flourished in the years between the 1920s and 1950s as hot spots like The Black Cat in Soho and The Roundhouse pub in Woolwich were frequented by Dilly Boys and Sea Queens (men who enjoyed the company of sailors). It was used casually among many- sometimes being used on the Tube to poke fun at the drag (clothes) or riah (hair) of the old lady opposite or to discuss last night’s trade (sexual partner), for example. The hidden dialect came to the fore, however, in the BBC radio production Round the Horne (1965-68) which featured the characters Julian and Sandy, played by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams, two unapologetically gay out-of-work actors who spoke extensively in Polari. One skit features one character demanding “Go in there and do the washing up!” with the other replying “I’m not going in there, all the dishes are dirty.” ‘dish’ is a double entendre, signifying both a dishy man or an arse. Polari allowed the show to pull the wool over the eyes of the BBC censors with innuendos but when your audience reaches 15 million regular listeners, it becomes more difficult to hide. Along with the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the 1967 Sexual Offences Act and Liberationist discourse that Polari as a symbol of the gay community’s oppression, the popularity brought to the language by Round the Horne saw it fall out of favour. From the 70s on, it was criticised as sexist and internally homophobic. Boyz Magazine even called it “evil” in 2000.
Can it really be as clear cut as that though? Yes, it’s true that Polari is a symbol of our community’s oppression in relatively recent history. It can also be argued to show a problematic attitude towards women. Distasteful phrases for female genitalia such as minge and beef curtains were commonly used by Polari speakers, and the feminisation of pronouns (reversing he and she) could be read pejoratively, parodying women not as homage but as mockery. However, this does not mean that it should be deemed something to be forgotten. As a world-leading ducky on Polari, Baker wrote over email how he doesn’t “make a case for bringing it back but I wanted to preserve the knowledge and memory about it. Not just the words but knowledge about the context that it occurred in and how and why it was used.” We can’t live in this world acting like progress was automatic. If we forget what it means to struggle then we become complacent and vulnerable to attack. The LGBTQ+ community exists in an increasingly precarious position in contemporary Britain and the wider world. According to the ONS, hate crimes against trans people have risen 186% in the last five years. This is 112% on the basis of sexual orientation.
In 2010, Cambridge University designated Polari an ‘endangered language’. This not only represents how close we are to losing this dialect but also to losing a significant element of history! “It is important to acknowledge the speakers who lived through the difficult times,” Baker argues, “and who didn’t have their stories told from their perspectives, or get to be the hero of [their] stories.” As queer people today we owe it to those who had to communicate in Polari to remember them and their fight. There are lessons to be learnt here about how to resist. “Camp can be a weapon against homophobia and transphobia- fascists hate to be laughed at… Laughing in the face of adversity is a powerful weapon.” Baker explains.
So come on, duckies! Get off your plates, grab your dolly coves and PROTECT POLARI!
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