Polari

Polari (from Italian parlare 'to talk') is a form of slang or cant historically used primarily in the United Kingdom among the gay subculture, as well as some actors, circus and fairground performers, professional wrestlers, merchant navy sailors, criminals, and prostitutes.

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

Alternative spellings include Parlare, Parlary, Palare, Palarie and Palari. The term comes from Italian parlare 'to talk'.

Polari is a mixture of Romance (Italian⁵ 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 a meaning more like that of cod), lattie (room, house, flat), 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).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

When used by homosexual men, Polari also involves inverting gendered personal pronouns and names, typically switching them from male forms to female forms. For example, he may become she (known as she-ing), and the name Paul may become Pauline.⁹¹⁰¹¹

From the 19th century on, Polari was used in London fish markets, theatres, fairgrounds, and circuses, hence the many borrowings from Romani.¹² 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.¹³

According to Oxford English Dictionary associate editor Peter Gilliver, little written evidence of Polari exists before the 1890s. The dictionary's entry for rozzer (policeman) includes a quote from P. H. Emerson's 1893 book Signor Lippo – Burnt Cork Artiste:¹⁴ "If the rozzers was to see him in bona clobber they'd take him for a gun." ("If the police were to see him finely dressed, they would know that he is a thief.")¹⁵

The almost identical Parlyaree has been spoken in fairgrounds since at least the 17th century¹⁶ 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).¹⁷ 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

Additional accounts of particular words relate to puppet performance:⁴

• "'Slumarys' – figures, frame, scenes, properties.
• "'Slum' – call, or unknown tongue" ("unknown" is a reference to the "swazzle", a voice modifier used by Punch performers).

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.¹⁸ 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; in the 1970s, the gay liberation movement began to view Polari as old-fashioned and perpetuating harmful camp stereotypes.¹⁹

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".²⁰ 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).²¹ 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.²⁰ Princess Anne allegedly told a reporter to "naff off" at the Badminton horse trials in April 1982.²² However, the photographers who were present have since stated that this was a censored version of what she actually said.²³

"Zhoosh" (/ʒʊʃ, ʒuːʃ/;²⁴ alternatively spelled "zhuzh," "jeuje," and a number of other variety spellings²⁵), 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. "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 2015.²⁶²⁷

Since the late 20th and early 21st century, there has been a renewed interest in Polari, especially as a part of LGBTQ+ heritage.²⁸²⁹³⁰ Gay's the Word has held workshops in Polari, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have translated (partially relexified) the King James Bible into Polari,³¹ and Madame Jo Jo's nightclub in Soho taught its staff to speak Polari.³²

Now as reefing fakements offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.

Linguist Paul Baker attributes increased interest in Polari primarily to the growing body of academic work on the subject.²⁸²⁹ Author George Reiner explains that "the revival of a language like Polari offers the possibility of an alternate queer linguistic space" at a time when closing LGBTQ+ venues and dating apps have reduced queer social spaces.²⁹

In 2007, writer and activist Paul Burston launched Polari Literary Salon in London to platform LGBTQ+ writers. He launched the Polari First Book Prize in 2011. This was followed by the Polari Prize for LGBTQ+ writers at all stages of their career in 2019 and the Polari Children's & YA Prize in 2022.³³³⁴ Other organisations have also taken names inspired by Polari, such as Polari Magazine,³⁵ Vada Magazine,³⁶ and VADA LGBTQ Community Theatre Company.³⁷

In 2012 and 2013, Manchester artists Jez Dolan and Joe Richardson presented a performance-based tour and exhibition titled Polari Mission, which explored LGBTQ+ history and language use in the UK. This was presented at The John Rylands Library and Contact Theatre.³⁸ In 2015, Dolan also translated sections of the 1957 Wolfenden Report into Polari for a commission from the UK Parliament.³⁹⁴⁰ Dolan and Richardson also worked with Paul Baker to produce a 500-word dictionary of Polari as an app.⁴¹

In December 2016, to launch LGBT+ History Month 2017 and celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, poet Adam Lowe performed his Polari poem "Vada That" in Parliament's Speaker's House with accompaniment by musician Nikki Franklin.⁴² In 2017, a service at Westcott House, Cambridge was conducted in Polari. Trainee priests held the service to commemorate LGBT History Month; following media attention, Chris Chivers, the principal, expressed his regret.^43444546

In 2019, Reaktion Books published Paul Baker's third book on Polari, Fabulosa!: The Story of Polari, Britain's Secret Gay Language.⁴⁷⁴⁸ His first two books on the subject (Polari: Fantabulosa: A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang and Polari: The Lost Language of Gay Men) were published in 2002 and 2003, respectively.⁴⁹

• Polari (spelt "Polare") was popularised on the 1960s BBC radio show Round the Horne. The camp gay Polari-speaking characters Julian and Sandy were played by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams.⁵⁰
• In the Doctor Who serial Carnival of Monsters (1973), Vorg, a showman, attempts to converse with the Doctor in Polari.⁵¹
• Ralph Filthy, a theatrical agent played by Nigel Planer in the BBC TV series Filthy Rich & Catflap, regularly used Polari.⁵²
• 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" later appeared on his compilation album Bona Drag, whose title is also taken from Polari.⁵³
• In Doom Patrol, Danny the Street often speaks Polari.⁵⁴
• In his 1995 novel Behind Closed Doors, Coronation Street creator Tony Warren depicts his characters using Polari on the gay scene of 1950s Manchester.⁵⁵
• In the 1998 film Velvet Goldmine, two characters speak Polari in a London nightclub. The scene has English subtitles in the American release of the film.¹⁹
• In 2015, Brian Fairbairn and Karl Eccleston made a short film, "Putting on the Dish", which features a conversation entirely in Polari.⁵⁶⁵⁷
• The song Girl Loves Me from David Bowie's 2016 album Blackstar features lyrics in both Polari and the fictional language Nadsat from the novel A Clockwork Orange.⁵⁸
• In 2018, George Reiner and Penny Burkett published cruising for lavs, written mostly in Polari.²⁸
• 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.⁵⁹
• 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.⁶⁰⁶¹
• In the 2020 film Roald & Beatrix: The Tail of the Curious Mouse, a young Roald Dahl runs away from home and meets "a silver-tongued, Polari-speaking eccentric who may be a figment of the boy's imagination" played by Bill Bailey.⁶²
• In 2023, Peepal Tree Press published Adam Lowe's debut poetry collection Patterflash, which features a number of Polari poems. The title is translated in the book's glossary as "Gossip, chat, ostentatious or pretentious speech; the lyrics pouring out of my gob".⁶³
• In the fourth episode of 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.⁶⁴
• British singer Olly Alexander released his debut album Polari on 7 February 2025.⁶⁵

Numbers:

Some words or phrases that may derive from Polari (this is an incomplete list):

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).⁷⁷