Gary Nunn\u2014 October 14, 2014 <\/p>\n
YOU may not know it, but gay men used to speak their own language. It was called Polari, and it was fantabulosa (wonderful).<\/p>\n
Okay, it was less of a language and more of a cant \u2014 a coded set of words used exclusively to avoid detection by unwanted outsiders \u2014 including the police, disapproving conservative society or the group on the table next to you that you\u2019re bitching about.<\/p>\n
Polari, used in the early 20th century in larger cities in a very priggish Britain, forms part of a long tradition of gay lexicon: the words used by gay men and, to a slightly lesser extent, lesbians. The language we use about ourselves and each other is still coded even today \u2014 often to spare the blushes of outsiders or to shroud in secrecy our peccadillos, put-downs and peculiar fetishes.<\/p>\n
But Polari is where it all began. You\u2019ll see from the Z\u2013A table on the following page (done backwards in Polari\u2019s subversive tradition) that many Polari words had common themes. It\u2019s no accident that there were several coded names for the police \u2014 such as Sharpering Omees, Jennifer Justice, Orderly Daughters, Hilda Handcuffs, Betty Bracelets, Lily Law. The use of female names for what was, back then, a predominantly male force cheekily undermines their authority. Polari was spoken at a time when homosexuality was illegal in Britain, so avoiding detection was as important as expressing a contempt for the law and its enforcers. Polari sits in the same bracket as other cryptolects. A cryptolect is a secretive language used to confuse and exclude others and affirm the character and solidarity of a marginalised subculture. In that sense, hip hop rap, cockney rhyming slang and Polari are all cousins.<\/p>\n
Polari\u2019s weapon was camp \u2014 imprinting a flamboyant flair and strange panache using a complete mish-mash of words \u2014 borrowed from cockney rhyming slang, backslang (when a word is pronounced backwards such as the Polari riah, esong and emag \u2014 hair, nose and game), Yiddish, Italian, theatre slang and naval slang. Even the Aussie \u201ccossy\u201d (costume) features in Polari. You might have dropped a Polari word into a sentence to surreptitiously show the attractive man you were talking to that you\u2019re gay \u2014 or test if he was. Or to avoid disapproval \u2014 even arrest. Or simply to bitch and get away with it.<\/p>\n
Polari shows its age with some casual racism (Schvartza for black man; Schinwhars for Chinese person) but it was also a cheeky way of speaking sexily in public without attracting attention \u2014 Kerterver cartzo so nanti arva (I can\u2019t have sex because I\u2019ve got an STI) \u2014 was hardly something you\u2019d broadcast. Similarly, Nada to vada in the larder (small penis) was a phrase you\u2019d keep on the down low.<\/p>\n
Professor Paul Baker, from Lancaster University\u2019s Department of Linguistics, is a world expert on Polari. When asked why Polari didn\u2019t exist in Australia (Editor\u2019s note: Polari does indeed exist in Australia.) or why lesbians didn\u2019t have their own Polari, he said it was because it was born out of a very oppressed group in a very particular time.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough Australia has \u2018the beat\u2019 as code for public restrooms, Polari flourished (in Britain) as a result of extreme oppression of gay men, plus the presence of other groups on the edges of society, all thrown together due to London\u2019s large population,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the conditions for Australia weren\u2019t the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
What about lesbians? Although evidence suggests they did use Polari, it was only in small numbers.<\/p>\n
Professor John Hajek from Melbourne University\u2019s School of Linguistics said: \u201cLesbians were a less identifiable group than gay men \u2014 hence they\u2019re less known for their own subculture and therefore slang. But some terms exist, often playful. For example: Hasbian \u2014 former lesbian, Saturday night lesbian \u2014 only gay at the weekends.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike gay men, the law never specifically outlawed lesbian sex so, as with many forms of gay subculture, the women were invisible.<\/p>\n
But is Polari an endangered language and should we preserve it? Professor Baker believes so.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why I did my PhD in it and created an app for it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t want the voices of the men and women who lived through that period to be forgotten. So often history is of the powerful, not the disempowered.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut preserving something isn\u2019t the same as reviving it. I don\u2019t want the conditions which brought it into being to be repeated. We never need to hide our sexuality from anyone. We have nothing to be ashamed of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Polari was popularised by the 1960s BBC radio series Round the Horne, which featured two camp Polari speakers, Julian and Sandy. Once it gained popularity, the cat was out of the bag. 1967 saw the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Britain \u2014 hence making Polari redundant.<\/p>\n
However, in many ways today we speak our own coded language. Take for example the zoological labels gay men apply to each other, denoting weight, age and hirsuteness. \u201cBear\u201d for hairy, older and larger; \u201ccub\u201d for hairy, younger and larger; \u201cotter\u201d for hairy, younger and slimmer; \u201csilver fox\/wolf\u201d for older and attractive; \u201cpink panther\u201d for a straight man who frequents gay bars to seduce women; \u201cWoof!\u201d to express physical approval of someone; and \u201ctwink\/chicken\u201d for younger, smoother and prettier. \u201cChicken\u201d itself was a Polari word, though twink is more common nowadays.<\/p>\n
Is this animalistic vernacular vulgar, primal and dehumanising or playfully affectionate? Or \u2014 simply another code for us to fetishise and bitch about each other?<\/p>\n
Soto Aivalis is categorised as a cub and he said he finds it \u201ccute and funny, even though I didn\u2019t even know what one was 5\/6 years ago\u201d.<\/p>\n He said it happened more often online: \u201cEveryone\u2019s trying to be a bit funnier, plus it\u2019s easier to call someone a cub in that space than face-to-face. In the real world it might come across as awkward.\u201d<\/p>\n John Kuna, a member of the Harbour City Bears, agreed.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve found the majority of the bear community, since coming out, as friendly and supportive so for me the term \u2018bear\u2019 has many positive connotations. Plus, hey, I\u2019m big and hairy so it pretty much fits,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no point trying to reject labels. People need labels to make sense of things, to identify with their \u2018tribe\u2019 so to speak. Most people want to identify with something, even those who say they don\u2019t like being labelled will stick to certain brands or wear a certain type of clothing. Without even realising we all inadvertently try to fit in.<\/p>\n \u201cTo date I\u2019ve never heard my social group use these terms as a put down. And c\u2019mon what\u2019s not to like about a big, stocky bear?\u201d<\/p>\n However, call Craig Mack a bear (or an otter or a cub) and he\u2019s likely to growl at you.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always felt uncomfortable with people being judged and categorised by their looks. Labels can help you find your place in a community, but I don\u2019t think they should wholly define your place in the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey also make it difficult for us to \u2018cross borders\u2019 into other communities. More recently though, I\u2019ve become indifferent because labels are, ultimately, meaningless.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve crossed so many communities and been the twink, the cub, the drag queen, the leather pup, the gym bunny and the party animal. I relate to all of them but none of those terms wholly define me. They all form part of who I am today, rather than a singular stereotypical characteristic.\u201d<\/p>\n Outside the gay community, these animal terms are bemusing. Interestingly, today gay code is global \u2014 for example, \u201cbear\u201d would be understood by gay communities internationally. Due to the internet and phone apps that allow you to explore in different countries, the gay language is no longer isolated to one place and time. It has become a universally understood and adopted code within a large community. More similarly coded, quirky terms are likely to spring up and spread quickly so gay people can speak to (or about) each other in further exclusive and interesting ways.<\/p>\n Lesbians use similar classifications and witticisms to categorise one another. Femme, butch, bull-dyke are all common terms. Consistent lesbians tease the fluidity some women experience in their sexual orientation and use GUG (gay until graduation) for women who experiment at university, or a term popularised by Orange is the New Black \u2014 \u201cgay for the stay\u201d (only a lesbian while in prison).<\/p>\n Today\u2019s coded gay language lacks the imagination and flair of Polari, but it does serve a similarly functional purpose. Many gay app profiles \u2014 especially in the US \u2014 will use \u201c420 friendly\u201d as a way of saying \u201cI like to get stoned\u201d without being too ostentatious (the origins of 420 are widely disputed, but the most likely etymology comes from a group of US students who used to meet at 4.20pm to smoke weed and this became adopted as code for consuming marijuana). It sits within a long tradition of using drug slang to avoid attracting the wrong attention or judgement.<\/p>\n To many straight people, the alphabet soup of the initialism LGBTI makes our community seem quite peculiar. However, really it shows a vibrant diversity and warm inclusiveness that endearingly, wants to see nobody feeling like an outsider. The semantics of equality may not be as sexy, catchy or witty, yet they reflect a community that has moved from marginalised and ostracised to mainstream \u2014 and even celebrated.<\/p>\n Now you\u2019re speaking my language.<\/p>\n **This article first appeared in the October 2014 issue of the Star Observer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I like the tradition, and what was the necessity of Polari. I like to litter my conversation with a sprinkling of an odd word, or a phrase of Polari, It’s my small nod to my queer forebears, passing along a … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/117.jpg17-300x274.jpg\" "\\"1.jpg\\"")
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