A brief history of Polari: the cur after-life of the ad language for gay men

Contents:

• POLARI: THE LANGUAGE GAY MEN ED TO SURVIVE
• REDISVERG POLARI: HOW THIS SECRET GAY LANGUAGE HELPED CREATE LGBT CULTURE
• REDISVERG POLARI: HOW THIS GAY DIALECT IS A MAP OF FOTTEN SUBCULTUR
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF POLARI, GAY ENGLAND’S ONCE-SECRET LGO
• REMEMBERG POLARI, THE FOTTEN LANGUAGE OF BRA'S GAY COMMUNY
• POLARI, THE FOTTEN GAY LANGUAGE
• TALKG POLARI: HOW THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF POLARI WAS EMBRACED BY THE LGBT+ MUNY AND WHY 'S BEG KEPT ALIVE TODAY'IT WOULD BE AN ABSOLUTE SHAME FOR TO DIE OUT PLETELY AS ’S AN IMPORTANT PART OF HISTORY'MENBOOKMARKSHARENEWSBYADAM MAIDMENTREPORTER18:35, 22 AUG 2020UPDATED14:32, 23 AUG 2020BOOKMARK55 YEARS AGO, EVENTS LIKE MANCHTER PRI WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO TAKE PLACE BUT MEMBERS OF THE GAY MUNY WERE STILL FDG A WAY OF BEG 'PROUD' (IMAGE: CARL SONIK/MANCHTER EVENG NEWS)THE WEEKLY EMAIL BRGS YOU ALL THE LATT NEWS OM THE LGBTQ+ MUNY PL EXCLIVE TERVIEWS DIRECT TO YOUR BOXMORE NEWSLETTERS SUBSCRIBEINVALID EMAILSOMETHG WENT WRONG, PLEASE TRY AGA LATER.MORE NEWSLETTERSWE E YOUR SIGN-UP TO PROVI NTENT WAYS YOU’VE NSENTED TO AND IMPROVE OUR UNRSTANDG OF YOU. THIS MAY CLU ADVERTS OM AND THIRD PARTI BASED ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF YOU. MORE THANK YOU FOR SUBSCRIBG!WE HAVE MORE NEWSLETTERSSHOW ME SEE OURPRIVACY NOTICE SEE OURPRIVACY NOTICE&TIM;GROUP 28 THE WEEKLY EMAIL BRGS YOU ALL THE LATT NEWS OM THE LGBTQ+ MUNY PL EXCLIVE TERVIEWS DIRECT TO YOUR BOXINVALID EMAILSOMETHG WENT WRONG, PLEASE TRY AGA LATER.SIGN UPNO THANKS, CLOSEWE E YOUR SIGN-UP TO PROVI NTENT WAYS YOU’VE NSENTED TO AND IMPROVE OUR UNRSTANDG OF YOU. THIS MAY CLU ADVERTS OM AND THIRD PARTI BASED ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF YOU. MORE &TIM;GROUP 28THANK YOU FOR SUBSCRIBG!
• THE GAY LANGUAGE OF POLARI
• POLARI: THE LOST LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN
• THIS SECRET LANGUAGE ALLOWED GAY MEN TO COMMUNITE WHEN HOMOSEXUALY WAS ILLEGAL
• POLARI: THE SECRET GAY LANGUAGE THAT WAS ED WHEN HOMOSEXUALY WAS NSIRED A CRIME

POLARI: THE LANGUAGE GAY MEN ED TO SURVIVE

”That may seem like a strg of nonsense words om Dr Sss’s The Cat the Hat or Anthony Burgs’s A Clockwork Orange but ’s a real-life greetg gay men the UK would say to each other the 1950s and 60s. The "secret language" was ed heavily by gays the circ, navy, and theater, and arose out of the need to discs gay matters unr a clever guise, due to homosexual acts beg illegal Bra until the passage of the Sexual Offens Act 1967.

REDISVERG POLARI: HOW THIS SECRET GAY LANGUAGE HELPED CREATE LGBT CULTURE

Here's some of the amg slang: Basket - the bulge of male genals through clothFantabulos-wonrfulEf - face (backslang) DollyEf - pretty face Chicken - a young guySome Polari words still exist morn gay slang. As gays began to fight for acceptance and rights, they ma a ncentrated effort to remove the Brish society's one-dimensnal view of all gays as beg overly mpy and effemate.

Check out Atlas Obscura pots out, Polari was a great self-performative outlet for Brish gays to not only exprs themselv but also easily intify and n wh fellow memebers of the queer muny. Also associated wh travellers, bkers, beggars and prostut, found s way to Bra, pecially London and port ci, and gradually beme ed by gay men and female impersonators, pecially durg the first half of the 20th century.

REDISVERG POLARI: HOW THIS GAY DIALECT IS A MAP OF FOTTEN SUBCULTUR

This was not to mock relign but to highlight how relig practic are filtered through different cultur and societi, and that spe not always beg treated well by mastream religns, there should still be space for gay people to engage wh relign. Comg to s own the late 1940s, Polari was the secret dialect of the unrground gay scene, allowg men to nverse eely about themselv and their sexual activi a time when they uld be imprisoned for their sexualy. In Queer London, a book documentg the history of gay culture the cy, thor Matt Houlbrook scrib Polari as “a way of creatg a space which to be queer, ” and nothg uld be more te.

* Although the term “drag” (meang men drsg women’s clothg) dat back to 1800s theatre termology, by bg wh the word “queen” or “quean” (which was a self-intifier for gay men London the mid 1800s-mid 1900s), Polari speakers created the current meang of the term “drag queen”: Queer men/people who drs women’s clothg for entertament. In this atmosphere secretive queer venu like the women-only Gateways Club opened up to ter to people takg advantage of the slippg of social norms durg the 1950s Polari was spoken predomantly - although not exclively - a gay muny facilated by this perd who ed as a way to both intify each other and disguise themselv.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF POLARI, GAY ENGLAND’S ONCE-SECRET LGO

Meanwhile progrsive movements for gay rights found ltle e for the d language of Polari, eher chewg favour of beg loud and proud or seekg to prove pary wh straight society through forms of assiatn. As a rult of this, the language s origal ntext has fallen to isn’t the end of the story though and today words once uttered by gay men backstreets have ma their way all over the world, even to the lips of Bra's Royal 1982 when Prcs Anne was photographed fallg om a horse, she famoly told paparazzi to ‘naff off, ’ perhaps not realisg she was g a Polari reference for heterosexual men. Born om many different subculture dialects, Polari is a secret language that not only allowed gay men to talk about sex whout beg persecuted or prosecuted but was also a ccial buildg block of queer culture.

REMEMBERG POLARI, THE FOTTEN LANGUAGE OF BRA'S GAY COMMUNY

Yet the years when homosexualy was illegal, was a way of munitg public whout riskg arrt – as well as a chance to challenge the stat was a secret language that beme a kd of verbal wk between gay men Bra durg the early 20th Century (Cred: Alamy)Layerg upon layerg of different fluenc ensur that there is no one sgle versn of Polari but many versns – Pl Baker“It was a secret, spoken form of language, ed maly by groups of people who were on the margs of society and associated wh crimaly, ” says Pl Baker, a lguistic history expert at the Universy of Lanster and thor of Fantabulosa: A Dictnary of Polari and Gay Slang.

POLARI, THE FOTTEN GAY LANGUAGE

” Some of the words are what’s been lled ‘backslang' – hair is ‘riah’, and face is ‘eek’ (om ‘ef’) was taken up mic halls, Palarie beme associated wh gay men at the start of the 20th Century.

TALKG POLARI: HOW THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF POLARI WAS EMBRACED BY THE LGBT+ MUNY AND WHY 'S BEG KEPT ALIVE TODAY'IT WOULD BE AN ABSOLUTE SHAME FOR TO DIE OUT PLETELY AS ’S AN IMPORTANT PART OF HISTORY'MENBOOKMARKSHARENEWSBYADAM MAIDMENTREPORTER18:35, 22 AUG 2020UPDATED14:32, 23 AUG 2020BOOKMARK55 YEARS AGO, EVENTS LIKE MANCHTER PRI WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ABLE TO TAKE PLACE BUT MEMBERS OF THE GAY MUNY WERE STILL FDG A WAY OF BEG 'PROUD' (IMAGE: CARL SONIK/MANCHTER EVENG NEWS)THE WEEKLY EMAIL BRGS YOU ALL THE LATT NEWS OM THE LGBTQ+ MUNY PL EXCLIVE TERVIEWS DIRECT TO YOUR BOXMORE NEWSLETTERS SUBSCRIBEINVALID EMAILSOMETHG WENT WRONG, PLEASE TRY AGA LATER.MORE NEWSLETTERSWE E YOUR SIGN-UP TO PROVI NTENT WAYS YOU’VE NSENTED TO AND IMPROVE OUR UNRSTANDG OF YOU. THIS MAY CLU ADVERTS OM AND THIRD PARTI BASED ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF YOU. MORE THANK YOU FOR SUBSCRIBG!WE HAVE MORE NEWSLETTERSSHOW ME SEE OURPRIVACY NOTICE SEE OURPRIVACY NOTICE&TIM;GROUP 28 THE WEEKLY EMAIL BRGS YOU ALL THE LATT NEWS OM THE LGBTQ+ MUNY PL EXCLIVE TERVIEWS DIRECT TO YOUR BOXINVALID EMAILSOMETHG WENT WRONG, PLEASE TRY AGA LATER.SIGN UPNO THANKS, CLOSEWE E YOUR SIGN-UP TO PROVI NTENT WAYS YOU’VE NSENTED TO AND IMPROVE OUR UNRSTANDG OF YOU. THIS MAY CLU ADVERTS OM AND THIRD PARTI BASED ON OUR KNOWLEDGE OF YOU. MORE &TIM;GROUP 28THANK YOU FOR SUBSCRIBG!

To make thgs more plited, Baker has seen a few ‘backronyms’, or fns applied after a word’s meang has evolved – such as ‘mp’ as g om ‘Known As Male Prostute’ 1967, the Sexual Offenc Act beme law, crimalisg homosexual acts that took place private between two men over the age of 21 (Cred: Alamy)Polari has s own vobulary for elements that mastream society is not terted – Pl BakerBaker believ Polari is a form of ‘anti-language’ – a term ed by the lguist Michael Halliday 1978 that Baker f as “a language ed by people who are on the ‘outsi’ of mastream society”. But for Brish gay men (and sometim women) the first half of the 20th century, Polari wasn’t jt a cute jargon: It was a secret , one that was absolutely gay Bra before about 50 years ago was dangero bs, and even beg perceived as gay then uld st you a prison sentence (homosexualy was crimalized the UK 1967).

In fact, gay culture was discsed so rarely that newspapers would report on gay people who were arrted as beg guilty of "gross cency, " sce was nsired taboo to even wre (or speak) the words "gay" or "homosexual. As language profsor Pl Baker of the UK’s Lanster Universy wr his 2002 book Polari—The Lost Language of Gay Men, was a lgo of "fast put-downs, ironic self-parody and theatril exaggeratn. " By other acunts, the roots of Polari are at least partially to be found the lgua an ed by Mederranean sailors and trars the Middle Ag and 's difficult to say when exactly Polari began, but at some pot performers—pecially actors, and pecially gay actors—began to e a distct argot to munite wh each other, often for the purpose of gossipg.

But few regnized the menacg and erotic blend of fictnal and hidn languag embedd the lyrics of track "Girl Lov Me": Predomantly Nadsat, the language of Anthony Burgs' novel A Clockwork Orange, and Polari, the fotten Brish language of 20th century gay men. In the UK, homosexualy was crimalized until 1967, when the Sexual Offenc Act legalized private "homosexual acts" between nsentg adults over the age of 21 (although not Stland or Northern Ireland) to the amendments, beg ught havg gay sex uld rult a prison sentence of two years, or vasive and huiatg hormone therapy.

THE GAY LANGUAGE OF POLARI

Alan Turg, the gay Brish mathematician behd the famo WW2 "enigma " that cracked enciphered German msag, was given a urse of female hormon by doctors as an alternative to prison after beg prosecuted by the police bee of his a rult of the law and entrenched homophobia, gay men had to be reful not to get ught and outed. One Brish tabloid newspaper, the Sunday Mirror published an article 1962 lled "How to Spot a Possible Homo": "It is high time we had a short urse on how to pick a pervert… Basilly homos fall to two groups - the obv and the ncealed…They are everywhere, and they n be anybody. Polari proved popular amongst choir boys, dancers, and actors, many of whom were of a "cryptolect" (a form of slang or argot ed exclively avoid certa tectn or judgement om others) than a fully formed language, gay men would drop Polari terms to nversatn: If the listener rpond wh Polari turn, you uld intify each other's sexual orientatn The Last Lbian BarsThere are parallels between the rise of Polari the 20th century and the Victorian practice—famoly adopted by Osr Wil—of wearg green rnatns to secretly dite one's homosexualy.

Police btaly the 50s, 60s, and 70s towards gay men was enmic, the realy of which is reprented the abundance of Polari slang for police officers; Betty Bracelets, Lillian Law, Jennifer Jtice.

Stanley and Baker argue that the gay muny rpond to the physil attacks wh verbal irony: It's no cince that the language ed to scribe the police ually terrogated their sense of masculy and bravado. Gay men would pick up other men for sex g Polar, whether was cisg parks, the shadows of public toilets, or viss to the secret twilight unrground world of bars and clubs. Although was not so long ago that Polari was actively spoken on London's streets, 's now fallen out of wispread e—takg on a cult stat amongst gay men due to s historil signifince, rather than practil relevance.

POLARI: THE LOST LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN

As changg social attus followg the crimalizatn of homosexualy allowed gay men to live more openly—and wh Brish rad edy seri Round the Horne popularizg the language to a mastream dience—the reason for s existence was lost. Gayle—the whe variant—was the lexin of "koffie-moffi" (Aikaans for "ffee gay men, " a slang name for male flight attendant the 1970s), and parallels Polari heavily by borrowg terms om Brish slang.

IsiNgqumo is the black queer variant, though has Zulu and not Polari was an exprsn of muny, of a nascent sense of shared inty—'s mp, 's funny, 's over the if you don't live a untry where entrenched homophobia requir you to live secretly, many gay men ntue to e language as a marker of their inty. The gay jargon of today reprents a playground of omo bodily tegorizatn and labellg, as displayed proudly Grdr bs: top, bottom, twk, twunk, otter, daddy, bear, cub, and even, dare I say , masc4masc.

THIS SECRET LANGUAGE ALLOWED GAY MEN TO COMMUNITE WHEN HOMOSEXUALY WAS ILLEGAL

Our experienc and sir are also d lgo popularized through Ain-Amerin and drag culture: gagged, sickeng, slay, fierce, sha, and, of urse, explas how there are still "functnal" reasons for gay people to e their own slang. Puttg on the Dish (meang "lubg up preparatn for anal sex" Polari) shows two gay men swchg and out of the language orr to openly discs sex and gossip ont of obliv more: The Trans Lawyer Fightg to Keep His Communy Alive"We wanted to highlight Polari's sheer lguistic exuberance, " the directors tell Broadly.

It remas an tegral part of queer culture and history that has not only shown how far gay men went to hi and play wh their inti, but as a lguistic signpost of the LGBTQ muny's creativy, uniquens, nerve, and talent. Before the legalisatn of homosexualy, beg able to intify and munite wh your LGBT peers through a secret language uld make the difference between life and ath – pecially for sex workers. Polari first me about the theatre and the gay subculture Bra the 1950s and 1960s, beg more wily known om s hidn e by mp rad characters a popular BBC rad show which ran om 1964 to 1969.

It grew up primarily to disguise homosexual activy om potentially hostile outsirs (such as unrver policemen), but also bee many gay men worked entertament (cludg circ, hence the many borrowgs om Romany Polari). Polari had begun to fall to dise by the late 1960s, the populary of Julian and Sandy ensured that this secret language was public property, and the gay liberatnists of the 1970s viewed as rather gradg, divisive and polilly rrect (a lot of was ed to gossip about or cricise people, as well as discsg sexual explos). Unbeknown to many listeners, the characters equently ed Polari, a secret d language equently ed by homosexuals the 1920s and 30s, and are regnised today for brgg to the mastream.

POLARI: THE SECRET GAY LANGUAGE THAT WAS ED WHEN HOMOSEXUALY WAS NSIRED A CRIME

“While most LGBT+ people this untry are okay to live their liv the way they want to, ’s important to remember that’s not the se for everybody and people are still beg attacked for beg gay.