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My guest this week is Professor Paul Baker, a writer and linguist whose work includes some FASCINATING explorations of Polari, the secret 19-century queer language that existed in England a century ago. He’s also delved deep into the history of British don’t-say-gay laws, gay seafarers, and in an upcoming book about campy queer culture. Given his expertise in campy sitcoms, drag stars, and celebrated actresses, I have a feeling that he speaks a language in which listeners of this podcast will be particularly fluent.

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Anonymous

How bizarre! Today's word from Dictionary.com is "scarper": "...originated in a British argot, likely Polari..." Looking up "polari", I got: "a distinctive English argot in use since at least the 18th century among groups of theatrical and circus performers and in certain gay and lesbian communities, derived largely from Italian, directly or through Lingua Franca"

Anonymous

It was quite commonly used up until the 1970s and 80s really, but obviously with Gay pride and LGBTQ+ conciousness being raised and us being more open it slowly started to die out. But certainly when I first came on the scne in the late 80s I was taught a little bit of it from older Queens like, : Bona to varda your dolly old eek. Which meant , nice to see your pretty face and a few others. It was camp and fun and I still use it with certain drag queens. Its very ,much these days like RuPauls Drag race Drag speak is now, but not as common. It still has an underground usefulness if your with Gay friends in the know and want to chat about other people or men nearby. he he eh

Anonymous

Also it was actually famously used in the 50/60s BBC radio series called ROUND THE HORNE by 2 gay characters Called Julian and Sandy who spoke it, and that was broadcast LIVE on Sunday afternoon radio and NOBODY clicked on to it AT ALL. They got away with murder cuz straights(NAFFS) didn't know what they were talking about and neither did BBC management. They all thought it was just this gobbledegook made up language, There'd've been murders if they actually knew what was being said. No even double entendre it was quite explicit really. So much fun to listen to though. The whole series is up on You Tube , really worth a listen. so much fun! here's the link to them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXjYlX9iFMo&list=PL9MP6KqRFaaqxCIj56g9OqF9agw5W_9g1

Anonymous

I was also a big Christie fan. Although I didn't pick up on it when I was young and reading all her books - most of them several times over - I realized later that she did have a number of gay male characters She'd describe these as "willowy young men". I did not pick up on the obvious female pairings until you mentioned them here, but duh - yeah. I guess I wasn't looking for them. My favorite was also "A Murder is Announced". I thought it was her best, although at the time I was reading her (50s and 60s) it seemed to me that "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" was considered by those who wrote about her to be her masterpiece. I never liked the films I saw made from her books because many things that I could rationalize while reading - coincidences, split second timing - looked ludicrous to me when I actually had to see them in action. I saw "The Mirror Crack'd" at the Castro theater. It was made when Liz Taylor was at her peak weight - really quite heavy. She played a glamorous actress married to Rock Hudson's character, Jason Rudd; there was a scene in a bedroom where she dramatically threw herself on Rock on a bed crying "Oh, Jason! Jason!" and all I could imagine was having a person of that tonnage landing on me. At the time, the norm for beauty in both men and women was slenderness, so it was much more jarring than it would be today. I really enjoyed this episode of Sewers - I am surprised "Are You Being Served?" is largely unseen here in America, because I thought everyone was aware of thqt series - I certainly saw a lot of it.