However, "there's little written evidence of Polari before the 1890s," according to Peter Gilliver, associate editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. William Shakespeare used the term bona (good, attractive) in Henry IV, Part 2, part of the expression bona roba (a lady wearing an attractive outfit). It was also used extensively in the British Merchant Navy, where many gay men joined ocean liners and cruise ships as waiters, stewards, and entertainers. As many homosexual men worked in theatrical entertainment it was also used among the gay subculture, at a time when homosexual activity was illegal, to disguise homosexuals from hostile outsiders and undercover policemen. There was some interchange between the two.įrom the 19th century on, Polari was used in London fishmarkets, the theatre, fairgrounds, and circuses, hence the many borrowings from Romani. According to a Channel 4 television documentary, there was once (in London) an " East End" version which stressed Cockney rhyming slang and a " West End" version which stressed theatrical and Classical influences. room to let), nanti (not, no), omi (man), palone (woman), riah (hair), zhoosh or tjuz (smarten up, stylize), TBH ("to be had", sexually accessible), trade (sex), and vada (see), and over 500 other lesser-known words. It was a constantly developing form of language, with a small core lexicon of about 20 words, including: bona (good ), 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 the sense of the aforementioned cod), lattie (room, house, flat, i.e. Later it expanded to contain words from the Yiddish language and from 1960s drug subculture slang.
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Polari is a mixture of Romance ( Italian or Mediterranean Lingua Franca), Romani, London slang, backslang, rhyming slang, sailor slang, and thieves' cant. Rainbow Plaque on Leeds City Varieties theatre