Feature Polari: the lost-and-found language of gay men Polari: the lost-and-found language of gay men “Bona to vada your dolly eek ” A few decades ago, gay men often used to talk to each other in a secret language – Polari – which today hardly anyone remembers. Paul Baker examines the reasons for its demise and assesses its chances of a comeback. Babel The Language Magazine | February 2013 31 Feature Polari: the lost-and-found language of gay men "With a lexicon made up mainly of nouns (largely depicting people, body parts, clothing and everyday objects), verbs (a fair number related to sex, social interaction or performance) and evaluative adjectives, it was perfect for gossiping about people while they were present." t is October 2012 and I feels appropriate – and I take LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual am in Bury (population some pleasure that it is still and Transgender) people over 60,718), a market town confounding and confusing the twentieth century. Starting in northern England, ordinary people, even when an with no rights whatsoever and standing outside an LCD projector shines the words a propensity to be blackmailed, imposing late-Victorian right into the 21st century. beaten up or imprisoned, gay Iart gallery building. I am here as I am too young to have people had to figure out a way of part of Bury Light Night – the heard Polari spoken in its communicating their existence town centre has turned into a heyday, and my introduction to to each other, and once contact night-time entertainment venue, it was befitting to someone born had been made, to continue that with a funfair, market stalls, into the middle of Generation conversation, without anyone fireworks and street performers. X, where a love of retro was else figuring out that they were As the sun sets, in the twilight essential when growing up. In in the presence of dangerous I notice the words he’s nada the 1990s a friend called Julian subversives (if you believed the to vada in the larder appear in played me a release of a 1960s newspapers). gigantic letters, projected onto BBC radio series called Round So dropping a Polari word the exterior walls of the building. the Horne which featured a into a conversation with a People passing by look up and regular sketch called Julian stranger acted as a password, mouth the phrase silently to and Sandy (what is it with all opening up myriad possibilities, themselves, or rhyme the words these gay Julians?) where the although in the ‘twilight world out loud, slightly incredulously, characters enthusiastically of the homosexual subculture’, wondering what it is all about. A spoke a kind of watered-down, Polari would be used much few passersby seem to be in on easy-to-follow version of Polari. more extensively and openly, the secret though, and smile to We found it funny, in an ironic sometimes as a kind of themselves knowingly. way, and I wondered what had competition, as some gay men The phrase is a rather happened in the intervening tried to out-camp each other, unkind epithet, to be used years to mean that none of my performing deliciously bitchy on a fellow who is not very gay friends had used it, or even battles for the entertainment well endowed, and it has been heard of it. It felt like there was of on-lookers. With a lexicon projected onto the building, a great story to tell around this made up mainly of nouns along with a range of other, almost mythological language, (largely depicting people, body similar phrases, as part of an and it led me to embark on parts, clothing and everyday ongoing art installation on an interesting and at times objects), verbs (a fair number Polari, an ‘almost’-language unconventional doctoral related to sex, social interaction used largely by gay men in the research project. Not many PhD or performance) and evaluative 20th century, which has been students get to interview drag adjectives, it was perfect for declining steadily in use since queens in hotels in Brighton, gossiping about people while the 1960s. Polari developed out while the said drag queen is they were present. Polari of a selective combination of having a new beehive wig fitted. doesn’t have many prepositions secret slang lexicons, used by My goal was to find out as although its most well-known entertainers, circus performers, much about Polari as I could, one ajax (most likely a truncation travelling Punch and Judy men where it had come from, who of adjacent to), attests to the and costermongers (who worked used it, how and why, and what “in your eke” (i.e. in your face) in travelling markets) so its happened to make it go away nature of its use – vada the naff presence during Bury’s night of again so quickly. Its rise and fall omee-palone with the cod riah ajax grass-roots street entertainment neatly match the treatment of translates to look at the awful gay 32 Babel The Language Magazine | February 2013 Feature Polari: the lost-and-found language of gay men Another strong aspect of Polari is pronoun switching, or “sheing” in man with the wig next to us. current gay slang, which is still popular in some circles. At a bar in As well as having its roots Manchester, a “she box” was recently installed, similar to a “swear in various slangs of travelling or box” with offenders being required to pay up for each errant she that stigmatised groups, Polari has they used. Someone’s boyfriend, new to the scene dared to express a strong antecedent in Italian, disapproval of one bar denizen who liked to use the pronoun a little so much so that only the most too much. “She shes!” shrugged his partner, turning she into a verb. linguistically unaware speaker But even as a pronoun, she can transcend its status as merely third would try to get away with using person, jumping into second (you) or even first person (I), as in the it there. On holiday, a couple following conversation: of English friends decided to Barry: Oh look, she’s here. impress those back home with [Enter Russell] designer Italian shoes and while Barry: Hello dear. How’s she? trying some on, began to extol Russell: She’s fine dear. the physical virtues of the male For an older gay man or one who is slightly more experienced, she will shop assistant, imagining that no longer do, and the first person pronoun of choice is your mother Polari would protect them. But as in “your mother’s gagging for a vogue ducky!” (a request for a the assistant understood enough cigarette in Polari). to express his gratitude for the compliment, causing much embarrassment and a quick exit. Some say that Polari reached a peak after World War II and into the early 1950s. During the war, people turned a blind eye to non-traditional or hedonistic sexuality (there were bigger issues to worry about and anyway, it might be your last chance in the blackout) and with many couples separated, relationships became opportunistic and complicated. However, after the war ended, and soldiers came home, there was a desire for a return to the status quo. Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation in 1953 sparked a ‘clean-up’ campaign of homosexuality in London, with many more arrests and drag shows being banned. No-one, not even Alan Turing, who was instrumental in cracking the Enigma machine-codes, was safe from prosecution. In 1952, turning to the police after he was robbed, he found himself under arrest and in a remarkable display of institutional violence was chemically castrated via injections of stilboestrol which caused him to develop breasts. His death via cyanide poisoning at the age of 41 The Polari Bible © Jez Dolan shortly afterwards has been Babel The Language Magazine | February 2013 33 Feature Polari: the lost-and-found language of gay men attributed to suicide, as some about the body of Jesus Christ published, officially sanctioned claim the half-eaten apple by (which is still illegal to publish). version of the scripts. his bed had been dipped in the However, Round the Horne had But just as Julian and poison. With an ending written a friend in the Director General Sandy helped to educate the by the Brothers Grimm, this of the BBC, Hugh Greene, British public that gay men were horrific fairy tale of homophobic who wasn’t adverse to smutty not communist spies after all, ingratitude still makes me angry, humour and couldn’t abide Mrs they also killed Polari’s golden particularly as Turing is yet to be Whitehouse. goose, exposing the secret and pardoned. I was lucky enough to making it less viable to be used, The moral panic continued interview one of the surviving say, in the public setting of a into the early 1960s, having writers of the sketches, Barry crowded tube carriage. And fresh life breathed into it Took, just before his own death, in any case, decriminalisation when communist spy John who told me that much of the meant there was less need for a Vassall was discovered to Polari in RTH was authentic, secret language. The tortured, be gay. However, it was an coming direct from Williams’ cardigan-wearing, 1950s queen earlier arrest and humiliation own knowledge of British gay was about to be replaced by of a group of relatively high- culture. Took confessed that the late 60s/early 70s gay profile men (Lord Montagu of some of Williams’ Polari was too liberationist – younger, earnest, Beaulieu, Michael Pitt-Rivers confusing, even for them, such politically radical yet sharing and Peter Wildeblood) in the as the phrase lau your luppers on something in common with mid-50s that was instrumental the strillers bona (play something sworn enemy Mrs Whitehouse in the commission of the nice on the piano), but everyone – that very British love of Wolfenden Report.