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Fabulosa! The Story of Polari, Britain’s Secret Gay Language
Polari is a language that was used chiefly by gay men in the first half of the twentieth century. At a time when being gay could result in criminal prosecution – or worse – Polari offered its speakers a degree of public camouflage, a way of expressing humour, and a means of identification and of establishing a community. Its roots are colourful and varied – from Cant to Lingua Franca to prostitutes’ slang – and in the mid-1960s it was thrust into the limelight by the characters Julian and Sandy, voiced by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams, on the BBC radio show Round the Horne. (‘Oh Mr Horne, how bona to vada your dolly old eke!’)
Paul Baker recounts the story of Polari with skill, erudition and tenderness. He traces its historical origins and describes its linguistic nuts and bolts, explores the ways and the environments in which it was spoken, explains the reasons for its decline, and tells of its unlikely re-emergence in the twenty-first century.
With a cast of drag queens and sailors, Dilly boys and macho clones, Fabulosa! is an essential document of recent history and a fascinating and fantastically readable account of this funny, filthy and ingenious language.
Paul Baker recounts the story of Polari with skill, erudition and tenderness. He traces its historical origins and describes its linguistic nuts and bolts, explores the ways and the environments in which it was spoken, explains the reasons for its decline, and tells of its unlikely re-emergence in the twenty-first century.
With a cast of drag queens and sailors, Dilly boys and macho clones, Fabulosa! is an essential document of recent history and a fascinating and fantastically readable account of this funny, filthy and ingenious language.
325 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 2, 2020
76 people are currently reading
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Paul Baker
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 118 reviews
October 28, 2019
When I first encountered the London gay scene back in the late 1970s it was quite segregated and there was little opportunity for gay men and lesbians to mingle socially – so it took me quite a while to become aware of the existence of Polari, the coded slang used by gay men amongst themselves. When I first asked a friend about the strange lingo I'd overheard at a house party I was told 'Oh, don't mind them, they've got their own secret language, all the old queens use it!' I was immediately intrigued, and actually quite jealous: how come the men had a secret language, and we didn't? The answer of course was that unlike gay men, lesbians had never been illegal so didn't have the same need to develop a code that was unintelligible to the public at large, and to the police in particular.
In this fascinating book, Prof Paul Baker traces the history of Polari from its origins in Elizabethan Cant through the Molly Houses of 18th century London and the Italian-based 'Parlyaree' used by various travellers including itinerant entertainers, gypsies and sailors to the theatrical community, the Merchant Navy and eventually the gay clubs and bars of the 20th century, acquiring a smattering of Cockney rhyming slang, backslang, Romany and Yiddish along the way . It was used mostly, but not exclusively, by camp gay men – most people in the theatrical profession would be familiar with at least a smattering, and it was also popular on cruise ships and amongst the horseracing fraternity (at a time when betting on the horses was illegal). During the 1960s it was broadcast, in simplified form, to the general public in the hilarious 'Julian & Sandy' sketches in the radio series 'Round The Horn' - escaping the wrath of moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse because its use of coded innuendo was 'too clever for her'.. It began to fall out of fashion from the 1970s onwards, due partly to the legalisation of (some) homosexual sex and partly to a change in attitudes within the gay community itself – political campaigning and political correctness was taking the place of camp innuendo, and drag queens and nancy-boys were being replaced by macho leather boys and cowboy clones who despised effeminacy. And then, of course, along came the AIDS crisis, and gay men had bigger things to worry about. More recently, however, Polari is making a comeback and being valued as an important component of gay history, and of gay men's struggle during dark times to survive, communicate, establish a culture of their own and even, against all the odds, to enjoy life!
This is a book by turns scholarly and entertaining, (these are plenty of hilarious Jules & Sandy excerpts), sobering and uplifting. I finished it feeling both educated and cheered, not to say slightly obsessed - it's fascinating how many Polari terms have now crossed over into common parlance (naff, nada, boobs, glossies, lippy, and savvy, to name but a few!) Now I'm on the lookout for Polari everywhere! So give 'Fabulosa' a go – it's one bona read and you'll learn lots of dolly new lavs.
In this fascinating book, Prof Paul Baker traces the history of Polari from its origins in Elizabethan Cant through the Molly Houses of 18th century London and the Italian-based 'Parlyaree' used by various travellers including itinerant entertainers, gypsies and sailors to the theatrical community, the Merchant Navy and eventually the gay clubs and bars of the 20th century, acquiring a smattering of Cockney rhyming slang, backslang, Romany and Yiddish along the way . It was used mostly, but not exclusively, by camp gay men – most people in the theatrical profession would be familiar with at least a smattering, and it was also popular on cruise ships and amongst the horseracing fraternity (at a time when betting on the horses was illegal). During the 1960s it was broadcast, in simplified form, to the general public in the hilarious 'Julian & Sandy' sketches in the radio series 'Round The Horn' - escaping the wrath of moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse because its use of coded innuendo was 'too clever for her'.. It began to fall out of fashion from the 1970s onwards, due partly to the legalisation of (some) homosexual sex and partly to a change in attitudes within the gay community itself – political campaigning and political correctness was taking the place of camp innuendo, and drag queens and nancy-boys were being replaced by macho leather boys and cowboy clones who despised effeminacy. And then, of course, along came the AIDS crisis, and gay men had bigger things to worry about. More recently, however, Polari is making a comeback and being valued as an important component of gay history, and of gay men's struggle during dark times to survive, communicate, establish a culture of their own and even, against all the odds, to enjoy life!
This is a book by turns scholarly and entertaining, (these are plenty of hilarious Jules & Sandy excerpts), sobering and uplifting. I finished it feeling both educated and cheered, not to say slightly obsessed - it's fascinating how many Polari terms have now crossed over into common parlance (naff, nada, boobs, glossies, lippy, and savvy, to name but a few!) Now I'm on the lookout for Polari everywhere! So give 'Fabulosa' a go – it's one bona read and you'll learn lots of dolly new lavs.
September 29, 2021
Overall, a lovely overview of Polari, its history and more contemporary forms. It was soothing to read, made me laugh and pointed me to quite a few other media (including books, documentaries and radio shows), some of which I have already started to enjoy and some of which I look forward to looking into.
I also learned a lot of Polari while reading, which I am definitely very happy about. To my big suprise, the book made me realise that there are quite some Polari words and expressions that I already knew but had always thought of as perfectly ‘straight’ English even in their more sexual/rough meanings (‘naff’, ‘cackle’, ‘dish’, ‘box’, ‘chavy’, ‘bevvy’, ‘cottage’, ‘fish’, ‘nada’ etc.).
I particularly loved the various explanations linking back to Cockney rhyming slang, which in combination with Polari expressions can lead to the most amazing results. For example: Polari ‘aris’ for ‘arse’, which comes from the Cockney rhyming slang use and shortening of ‘Aristotle’ for ‘bottle’, which in turn is used for ‘ass’ (‘bottle and glass’). Brilliant!
While reading, I remembered that one scene of two men talking fast Polari on a park bench that I had seen a few times but never really understood. I went back to watch it again after having read most of the book and found that I could understand almost all of it – a wonderful feeling. Even if it was unlikely that actual Polari conversations sounded like that one, it made me happy to be able to recognise and make sense of the various expressions used in that scene.
The book is not a Polari textbook, though, and that’s for the better. I really appreciated Baker’s repeated situating of Polari within the contexts it was used and being careful to focus on Polari’s purpose and the lived realities of its speakers more than on any potential fancy ‘this is how you use it to be fab’ take on it all. What the book teaches is more the history and realities of multi-facetted people, not the (often only imagined to begin with) glitteriness of a ‘gay language’.
In terms of what I didn’t like, I can only say that this book would have benefitted greatly from a little more and better editing.
Typos aside, I sometimes found myself confused/irritated by a suprising imbalance in coherence between the chapters. Some bits get explained twice or three times and are explicitly linked to other parts of the book too close for it to be necessary, which made me feel as if I were reading ‘the same thing’ I had just read a few minutes earlier. Yet with other bits, no explanation or linking was given where I felt in need of some more context to make sense of it all. There is also a rather big inconsistency in that Baker first introduces a brief discussion of different terms that could be used to refer to Polari in a linguistic sense and ultimately decides against ‘language’ but then it is exactly ‘language’ that is used again and again in the rest of the book, without further comment or distinction.
Some explanations and phrasing ended up a bit unfortunate and could have been hugely improved by even small changes. I see examples of this both in regard to identity (for example, ‘femminielli [is] a name given to people who are born as men and go on to live as women’ – a phrasing highly at odds with current discursive approaches to gender and birth) and linguistics (for example, ‘When you learned Polari, you weren’t just learning the words but the attitude that went with them.’ – adding a simple ‘as with any language’ here would have made a big difference).
I realise that this book is intended as a kind of lighthearted ‘non-academic’ text and I imagine that some of these bits are the result of ‘simplifying’ in order to not scare the audience away, but the existence of a lot of other bits that I could only read as very intentional in their awareness (for example in describing the police as ‘rightly [!] seen as natural enemies [by gay Polari speakers]’ or in explaining that someone might be unavailable ‘owing to the unfortunate [!] condition of being straight’) makes me think that the places where such attention to crucial detail is missing are oversights, not intentional simplifications.
The former type of such unfortunate phrasings could be linked to Baker’s having become a bit ‘dated’, as he calls it himself, in relation to the way young(er) LGBTIQ* people understand their identities now. This is just the way things go, I assume, and another reason I wish an editor had had the awareness to point at these bits and suggest slight rephrasings of them to make them more inclusive / up to date with contemporary critical approaches to identity. Similar attention would have helped with imagining the book’s audience as not just British and avoid wording such as ‘those who wanted to threaten our [!] way of life’.
The latter type might be related to Baker’s attempt to move away from more formal linguistics, so to speak (whether only in this book or in general, I cannot say). Relatedly, I found it a pity that in referring to his PhD thesis, Baker dismisses concepts/terminology such as ‘performativity theory’ and ‘coding orientation’ by simply commenting on them with ‘(yes, me neither)’. Similarly, queer theory is being presented as ‘overcomplicating’ things, at least in terms of jargon. I feel that a book like this could work well to get readers interested also in more academic approaches and should not play along with common perceptions of academic terminology as useless and queer theory as impossible to grasp anyway.
While these moments made me pause and sigh from time to time, I still very much enjoyed reading this book and there is a lot more positive to it than there is negative. One small thing that really stood out to me is Baker’s humour that shows itself in the image captions, some of which are absolutely hilarous. It makes me think that Baker, who keeps describing himself as ‘shy’ throughout the boook, would have made a most fabulous queen of her own.
Finally, Baker is absolutely right to suggest you grab a ‘lace hanky’ for the final chapter; I needed one again and again throughout the entire book, actually, because the story of Polari is the story of its speakers – and this book tells it with all the weirdness, sadness and kindness it deserves. Most wonderfully bona!
I also learned a lot of Polari while reading, which I am definitely very happy about. To my big suprise, the book made me realise that there are quite some Polari words and expressions that I already knew but had always thought of as perfectly ‘straight’ English even in their more sexual/rough meanings (‘naff’, ‘cackle’, ‘dish’, ‘box’, ‘chavy’, ‘bevvy’, ‘cottage’, ‘fish’, ‘nada’ etc.).
I particularly loved the various explanations linking back to Cockney rhyming slang, which in combination with Polari expressions can lead to the most amazing results. For example: Polari ‘aris’ for ‘arse’, which comes from the Cockney rhyming slang use and shortening of ‘Aristotle’ for ‘bottle’, which in turn is used for ‘ass’ (‘bottle and glass’). Brilliant!
While reading, I remembered that one scene of two men talking fast Polari on a park bench that I had seen a few times but never really understood. I went back to watch it again after having read most of the book and found that I could understand almost all of it – a wonderful feeling. Even if it was unlikely that actual Polari conversations sounded like that one, it made me happy to be able to recognise and make sense of the various expressions used in that scene.
The book is not a Polari textbook, though, and that’s for the better. I really appreciated Baker’s repeated situating of Polari within the contexts it was used and being careful to focus on Polari’s purpose and the lived realities of its speakers more than on any potential fancy ‘this is how you use it to be fab’ take on it all. What the book teaches is more the history and realities of multi-facetted people, not the (often only imagined to begin with) glitteriness of a ‘gay language’.
In terms of what I didn’t like, I can only say that this book would have benefitted greatly from a little more and better editing.
Typos aside, I sometimes found myself confused/irritated by a suprising imbalance in coherence between the chapters. Some bits get explained twice or three times and are explicitly linked to other parts of the book too close for it to be necessary, which made me feel as if I were reading ‘the same thing’ I had just read a few minutes earlier. Yet with other bits, no explanation or linking was given where I felt in need of some more context to make sense of it all. There is also a rather big inconsistency in that Baker first introduces a brief discussion of different terms that could be used to refer to Polari in a linguistic sense and ultimately decides against ‘language’ but then it is exactly ‘language’ that is used again and again in the rest of the book, without further comment or distinction.
Some explanations and phrasing ended up a bit unfortunate and could have been hugely improved by even small changes. I see examples of this both in regard to identity (for example, ‘femminielli [is] a name given to people who are born as men and go on to live as women’ – a phrasing highly at odds with current discursive approaches to gender and birth) and linguistics (for example, ‘When you learned Polari, you weren’t just learning the words but the attitude that went with them.’ – adding a simple ‘as with any language’ here would have made a big difference).
I realise that this book is intended as a kind of lighthearted ‘non-academic’ text and I imagine that some of these bits are the result of ‘simplifying’ in order to not scare the audience away, but the existence of a lot of other bits that I could only read as very intentional in their awareness (for example in describing the police as ‘rightly [!] seen as natural enemies [by gay Polari speakers]’ or in explaining that someone might be unavailable ‘owing to the unfortunate [!] condition of being straight’) makes me think that the places where such attention to crucial detail is missing are oversights, not intentional simplifications.
The former type of such unfortunate phrasings could be linked to Baker’s having become a bit ‘dated’, as he calls it himself, in relation to the way young(er) LGBTIQ* people understand their identities now. This is just the way things go, I assume, and another reason I wish an editor had had the awareness to point at these bits and suggest slight rephrasings of them to make them more inclusive / up to date with contemporary critical approaches to identity. Similar attention would have helped with imagining the book’s audience as not just British and avoid wording such as ‘those who wanted to threaten our [!] way of life’.
The latter type might be related to Baker’s attempt to move away from more formal linguistics, so to speak (whether only in this book or in general, I cannot say). Relatedly, I found it a pity that in referring to his PhD thesis, Baker dismisses concepts/terminology such as ‘performativity theory’ and ‘coding orientation’ by simply commenting on them with ‘(yes, me neither)’. Similarly, queer theory is being presented as ‘overcomplicating’ things, at least in terms of jargon. I feel that a book like this could work well to get readers interested also in more academic approaches and should not play along with common perceptions of academic terminology as useless and queer theory as impossible to grasp anyway.
While these moments made me pause and sigh from time to time, I still very much enjoyed reading this book and there is a lot more positive to it than there is negative. One small thing that really stood out to me is Baker’s humour that shows itself in the image captions, some of which are absolutely hilarous. It makes me think that Baker, who keeps describing himself as ‘shy’ throughout the boook, would have made a most fabulous queen of her own.
Finally, Baker is absolutely right to suggest you grab a ‘lace hanky’ for the final chapter; I needed one again and again throughout the entire book, actually, because the story of Polari is the story of its speakers – and this book tells it with all the weirdness, sadness and kindness it deserves. Most wonderfully bona!
August 7, 2025
'Bona lavs and larlou!'
December 11, 2024
2.5 stars
I must start out by saying that I love Paul Baker's work, Camp!: The Story of the Attitude that Conquered the World and Outrageous!: The Story of Section 28 and Britain’s Battle for LGBT Education are both on my LGBTQi bookshelf of favourites.
However, this offering from Paul could have been article length and still have had the same impact. As fascinating as Polari is, I think there isn't a full book's worth of material; it felt like Paul had seriously stretched it out to make a full book. Don't get me wrong, there are snippets of fabulous anecdotes and use of Polari. Having read Kenneth Williams diaries, I could relate to the stories of him using it, and Paul O'Grady too. There are interesting bits of queer history thrown in too, albeit bits I've read elsewhere.
Overall a 2.5 star read, not because I didn't enjoy it per se, but because it felt repetitive from being over bloated to fill a word count.
A final aside: Interestingly, bevvy is a word mentioned in the book as meaning a drink and bevvied meaning drunk; as a Scouser this word has been around for donkeys years in Scouse parlance! Whether it's related to Polari is interesting given Liverpool's maritime and LGBT history (gay sailors and all that dahhling!) or whether it's just been a Scouse thing is debatable. Hmmmmm........
I must start out by saying that I love Paul Baker's work, Camp!: The Story of the Attitude that Conquered the World and Outrageous!: The Story of Section 28 and Britain’s Battle for LGBT Education are both on my LGBTQi bookshelf of favourites.
However, this offering from Paul could have been article length and still have had the same impact. As fascinating as Polari is, I think there isn't a full book's worth of material; it felt like Paul had seriously stretched it out to make a full book. Don't get me wrong, there are snippets of fabulous anecdotes and use of Polari. Having read Kenneth Williams diaries, I could relate to the stories of him using it, and Paul O'Grady too. There are interesting bits of queer history thrown in too, albeit bits I've read elsewhere.
Overall a 2.5 star read, not because I didn't enjoy it per se, but because it felt repetitive from being over bloated to fill a word count.
A final aside: Interestingly, bevvy is a word mentioned in the book as meaning a drink and bevvied meaning drunk; as a Scouser this word has been around for donkeys years in Scouse parlance! Whether it's related to Polari is interesting given Liverpool's maritime and LGBT history (gay sailors and all that dahhling!) or whether it's just been a Scouse thing is debatable. Hmmmmm........
September 27, 2023
"In the beginning Gloria created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was nanti form, and void; and munge was upon the eke of the deep. And the fairy of Gloria trolled upon the eke of the aquas. And Gloria cackled, Let there be sparkle: and there was sparkle. And Gloria vardad the sparkle, that it was bona: and Gloria medzered the sparkle from the munge."
This delightful translation of the bible in Polari - an extensive slang 'language' used by British gay men from at least- is part of the best of this book. A linguist who worked on Polari in his early career, Baker runs through the little that is known about the origins of the language, before delving into its influence in various locations, including bars and cruise ships (who knew how queer these were?) and on Round the Horn. He is battling in these sections simply with a paucity of information. The focus on Polari as a distinct system also comes at times at the expense of how it melds with other slang, in the way of street languages.
Baker notes that he decided to omit some of the more racist comments his interviewees made, as well as possibly other relics 'of their time', although he includes some derogatory racial language in the dictionary. I wasn't sure about this - I understood his reasons, but it does the past no favours to cleanse it, and the past includes gay men of colour, whose exclusion from Polari is part of the story. Women barely appear, especially queer women, which is unfortunately all to common for histories of gay male cultures.
But there really are two strengths here - one is the sheer joy of Polari, with its whoops and swings, its defiant joy. Do yourself a treat and call up some of the Bona segments from Round the Horn on the Internet. They are still ridiculously funny, and in a way which, remarkably, still feels like the gay men are making the jokes, not the but (the aris!) of them.
The other strength is the last section, in which Baker turns wonderfully pensive, musing on the 'revival' of polari, more as a symbol, "more like a kind of anachronistic Frankenstein’s monster version of the language". But he muses on the importance of this - the use of machine learning to translate a whole bible in Polari, the revival as a way of honouring the past as well as adapting it for a new future.
This delightful translation of the bible in Polari - an extensive slang 'language' used by British gay men from at least- is part of the best of this book. A linguist who worked on Polari in his early career, Baker runs through the little that is known about the origins of the language, before delving into its influence in various locations, including bars and cruise ships (who knew how queer these were?) and on Round the Horn. He is battling in these sections simply with a paucity of information. The focus on Polari as a distinct system also comes at times at the expense of how it melds with other slang, in the way of street languages.
Baker notes that he decided to omit some of the more racist comments his interviewees made, as well as possibly other relics 'of their time', although he includes some derogatory racial language in the dictionary. I wasn't sure about this - I understood his reasons, but it does the past no favours to cleanse it, and the past includes gay men of colour, whose exclusion from Polari is part of the story. Women barely appear, especially queer women, which is unfortunately all to common for histories of gay male cultures.
But there really are two strengths here - one is the sheer joy of Polari, with its whoops and swings, its defiant joy. Do yourself a treat and call up some of the Bona segments from Round the Horn on the Internet. They are still ridiculously funny, and in a way which, remarkably, still feels like the gay men are making the jokes, not the but (the aris!) of them.
The other strength is the last section, in which Baker turns wonderfully pensive, musing on the 'revival' of polari, more as a symbol, "more like a kind of anachronistic Frankenstein’s monster version of the language". But he muses on the importance of this - the use of machine learning to translate a whole bible in Polari, the revival as a way of honouring the past as well as adapting it for a new future.
December 30, 2022
This book does a lot more than it says on the tin. As well as being a book about language, it's also a social history of Britain's effeminate gay subcultures in the mid twentieth century.
Fabulosa!'s triumph is its seamless interleaving of different writerly techniques into a coherent and enjoyable whole. The author's voice is strong and personal throughout. The academic work that underpins the book is not hidden, but neither is it allowed to distract from the flow. Where an argument can or should be seen from multiple or conflicting perspectives, the author signals this clearly, without relinquishing his command of the narrative.
Written right at the end of the period when 'organic' polari speakers were still alive and able to impart their experiences, Fabulosa! records and preserves an impression of a moment in history that left few concrete records. This alone makes it a uniquely interesting book. However, beyond its antiquarian achievements, it erupts with passion for the baroque charms of lost era of British homosexual life.
Those of us who have lived more of our lives in the 21st century than the 20th will find a wider attraction to this book. So much of British society and culture was either lost or destroyed after the midcentury, discarded as so much trash by the 'modernising' Thatcher and Blair generations. We now find ourselves on a collective mission to recover the many babies tossed out with the bathwater, whether in pubs, politics, or public service broadcasting .
Fabulosa! has no interest in a apologising for the closed, bigoted, and downright violent society which made polari a necessary affectation for its speakers, but it sees clearly what was beautiful and worthy in it, and throws a lifeline to the past to save what deserves to be saved.
Fabulosa!'s triumph is its seamless interleaving of different writerly techniques into a coherent and enjoyable whole. The author's voice is strong and personal throughout. The academic work that underpins the book is not hidden, but neither is it allowed to distract from the flow. Where an argument can or should be seen from multiple or conflicting perspectives, the author signals this clearly, without relinquishing his command of the narrative.
Written right at the end of the period when 'organic' polari speakers were still alive and able to impart their experiences, Fabulosa! records and preserves an impression of a moment in history that left few concrete records. This alone makes it a uniquely interesting book. However, beyond its antiquarian achievements, it erupts with passion for the baroque charms of lost era of British homosexual life.
Those of us who have lived more of our lives in the 21st century than the 20th will find a wider attraction to this book. So much of British society and culture was either lost or destroyed after the midcentury, discarded as so much trash by the 'modernising' Thatcher and Blair generations. We now find ourselves on a collective mission to recover the many babies tossed out with the bathwater, whether in pubs, politics, or public service broadcasting .
Fabulosa! has no interest in a apologising for the closed, bigoted, and downright violent society which made polari a necessary affectation for its speakers, but it sees clearly what was beautiful and worthy in it, and throws a lifeline to the past to save what deserves to be saved.
June 7, 2019
A super fascinating look at the history of Polari, from its possible roots to its 'underground' use, all the way to its mainstream moment and its move into relative obsolescence—all with the context of queer (un)acceptance in the UK. If you're a linguist (ahem) this is especially interesting, and it's incredible to see how many terms we use regularly came into common usage through Polari (bevvy, booze, naff, khazi, nosh, glossies). Highly recommended.
March 7, 2020
What’s Polari for crush? Because I have one on Paul Baker after reading this book. Without his documentation and commitment to Polari we likely would have lost most knowledge of the subject. Fun and insightful read.
March 2, 2021
Have a vada of this bona book on Polari, the secret omee-palome language that blossomed across Britain in the mid 21st century. It is definitely Fabulosa, and a worthy read for anyone who loves languages and uncovering the mysteries of the human race.
It also acts as a quaint history book on homosexuality throughout the 21st century, and most importantly the underground art movements that surrounded Polari and even sexuality in general.
There is so much to appreciate about those who spoke Polari bona when being gay was a criminal offence, but there's more to this language than meets the eye, with much of the language still finding use today.
Most of all, Paul Baker may be an academic, but this book is not heavy reading. It's light, fluffy and full of frivolity - just like the queens who vadad the dishes at the cottage...
It also acts as a quaint history book on homosexuality throughout the 21st century, and most importantly the underground art movements that surrounded Polari and even sexuality in general.
There is so much to appreciate about those who spoke Polari bona when being gay was a criminal offence, but there's more to this language than meets the eye, with much of the language still finding use today.
Most of all, Paul Baker may be an academic, but this book is not heavy reading. It's light, fluffy and full of frivolity - just like the queens who vadad the dishes at the cottage...
December 5, 2019
Polari is a secret language of sorts, or one has to be in that world, to know. Used among mostly gay British men of the 1930s to the late 1960s, when homosexuality was illegal. A secret communication, but told in the open, and it's a language that is very specific in its meaning and context within a conversation. Paul Baker's "Fabuosa!" is a remarkable history of Polari, which has its roots in old Italian, theater-life, and on the streets. Incredible culture.
March 15, 2025
4.0 stars
great book, i learned many things about Polari i didn't know before, which was it's purpose, so i guess that's a job well done
great book, i learned many things about Polari i didn't know before, which was it's purpose, so i guess that's a job well done
November 22, 2022
Alison, are you going to start randomly inserting Polari words into your Facebook posts and such now?
Well, duckie, I won't mogue, it's bona cackle, and a bibi palone needs lingo when she's in the life, mais oui--and that's your actual French!
Yeah, everyone's going to love me so much.
It was super interesting and completely fascinating to learn the deep and complex history of the language of Polari--how it came to be, how it was used, its fluctuations of popularity and understanding, and especially learning some of the words and phrases. The queer community for so long had to find all kinds of sly ways to find each other and communicate without alerting others to their presence or identity. (And of course, in many places, this is sadly still the case.) Coming up with not just slang but nearly a full and complete language all its own is ingenious, and a lot of it was incredibly fun, too, being quite camp and raunchy. I really liked how the author noted that the language carried with it not just nouns and adjectives and verbs but a clear view of the world, that using Polari gave your words a specific connotation, arising from the queer subculture.
I appreciated too that we also see a sort of timeline of gay culture and society itself, from a time when it was very much illegal to be gay in the UK, through liberation, through AIDS, through slow assimilation, through queer rejection of said assimilation. And along the way, we see how Polari fell mostly out of use once gay people didn't need to live so much in the shadows in the UK and elsewhere, but that it has experienced small but fond resurgences in certain groups and places. I also loved that he talks a good deal about The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, some of my favorite people on the planet.
There were a few spots that I thought went on a little too long and got a tad dry, but this is wonderfully researched and accessible and a lot of damn fun. Bona lavs and larlou, heartface!
[Read for the "secret" word prompt for Nonfiction November.]
August 19, 2021
A bit surprised that author seemed to have overlooked a certain Imperial influence in some words in Polari: see HOBSON-JOBSON A GLOSSARY OF COLLOQUIAL ANGLO-INDIAN WORDS AND PHRASES, AND OF KINDRED TERMS, ETYMOLOGICAL, HISTORICAL, GEOGRAPHICAL AND DISCURSIVE: BY COL. HENRY YULE, R.E., C.B. AND A. C. BURNELL, Ph.D., C.I.E. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58529.... Illuminating, I think, on derivation of e.g. 'dhobie' for laundry and 'pawney' for water, probably others.
July 12, 2020
This was genuinely fascinating. It’s easy to read, told in a conversational style, and you really don’t have to know much going in. It’s a crash course in British gay history that asks so many interesting questions about what language can be used for, and I really enjoyed it.
June 27, 2023
4.3/5
Highly informative not only on the topic of Polari specifically but really anything else that could add to the understanding of Polari itself - the historical and cultural contexts.
I found the earlier chapters on the influence of other languages and slang incredibly fascinating.
Highly informative not only on the topic of Polari specifically but really anything else that could add to the understanding of Polari itself - the historical and cultural contexts.
I found the earlier chapters on the influence of other languages and slang incredibly fascinating.
August 10, 2025
More than just a fantastic record of queer history, this linguistic investigation into subcultures is one of the most important books I’ve read. I’m utterly fascinated by every page.
A worthwhile read for anyone interested in language, history, society, and culture!
A worthwhile read for anyone interested in language, history, society, and culture!
March 28, 2024
A really interesting look of the linguistics surrounding Polari but mostly of the gay culture of the 1940s to the early 2000s. Definitely give this one a try if you're interested in any of that
October 11, 2024
I was utterly fascinated by the roots of the slang/not quite language of Polari, and by the end of the book, I could find I was already able to mentally translate most of a sentence. It lost me a little on the Round the Horne segment, but otherwise a very interesting linguistic and historical read.
March 14, 2021
One could say that this is a book for readers interest in linguistics and in lgbt+ history/culture. But it would be an understatement- this book is so much more. It’s a book about survival against oppression, freedom of expression and about how culture develops and evolves. Ultimately, and perhaps more importantly, it’s a book about “not to take yourself too seriously, to laugh at your perceived flaws and to make fun of the various adversities that life inevitably throws your way every now and then”... and isn’t it what we all need, after all?
December 4, 2020
Liked it overall, definitely enjoyed the history of it, but a super white book - all the pictures are of white people - and there's no mention of race until a weird quasi defense of some race-specific polari language by saying that whites gays today are also racist??
March 21, 2022
Fabulosa! is a heartfelt, fun, and extremely well-written exploration into the world of Polari, a largely underground language used mostly by gay men in the mid-twentieth century. Baker investigates what Polari is, how the language developed, and it’s movement into the semi-mainstream via the Julian and Sandy radio sketches, before discussing possible explanations for Polari’s downfall, and future prospects of the language.
Aside from how well structured and researched it is, what I enjoyed most about this book was the way Baker captured the essence of Polari in the tone the book was written in. Polari is largely defined by its camp and cheeky playfulness, something that Baker has captured well within his writing (of course including Polari phrases on the way!). In this sense, whilst educating the reader on Polari and it’s history, Baker himself continues on the Polari tradition - there’s no way you could read this without picking up a couple of words and understanding the general tone of the language.
LGBT history is so often neglected, and I am grateful to Paul Baker for his effort into something often forgotten or shoved in as an afterthought, and doing so in a fun and often light-hearted way. I’m very glad I read this book, and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in LGBT history or linguistics - you’re sure to have a bona time!
Aside from how well structured and researched it is, what I enjoyed most about this book was the way Baker captured the essence of Polari in the tone the book was written in. Polari is largely defined by its camp and cheeky playfulness, something that Baker has captured well within his writing (of course including Polari phrases on the way!). In this sense, whilst educating the reader on Polari and it’s history, Baker himself continues on the Polari tradition - there’s no way you could read this without picking up a couple of words and understanding the general tone of the language.
LGBT history is so often neglected, and I am grateful to Paul Baker for his effort into something often forgotten or shoved in as an afterthought, and doing so in a fun and often light-hearted way. I’m very glad I read this book, and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in LGBT history or linguistics - you’re sure to have a bona time!
February 2, 2025
This has been on my list since it was published so I was delighted to get it for Christmas. Baker wrote his PhD on Polari and has used a lot of his research to construct this fascinating, entertaining book about the history (and sociology) of Polari. Like a lot of (British) people my age my knowledge of Polari is filtered through the memories of older people's experiences of the radio show Round The Horne, where Kenneth Williams' and Hugh Paddick's characters made some (limited) use of the language. Someone I used to work with had listened to recordings of the shows with his family and he used a lot of their phrases. Anyway it was interesting to read something written in 2017 now in 2025 when a lot of the 'issues' that might cause a marginalised group to develop a secret language are once more on the prowl. So I found it hopeful in a lot of ways because you can't actually make people go away by oppressing them. (I also have other, more complex thoughts about this, obviously.)
Anyway, if you have any interest in languages, slang, or LGBTQ+ history it's great.
A gift from Ja and Jane.
Anyway, if you have any interest in languages, slang, or LGBTQ+ history it's great.
A gift from Ja and Jane.
March 9, 2025
Rounded up from 4.5. Practically perfect in every way. Only small gripes were with the chapter order; I think context behind why people spoke Polari might have made more sense coming before the chapter on the words, grammar and syntax of the language, but really this is a small thing. Also, and this is difficult for a book on language, but sometimes the use of Polari detracted from some understanding. This is probably a silly complaint but it did come into my mind a few times when reading! Otherwise, I absolutely loved reading this and I loved how it made me think so much about the history of being queer (especially being gay) but also the political importance of camp. Hyper-masculinity in the gay community has SUCH an interesting history and it definitely gave me some thinking-points, which is what I want all of my non-fiction to do. A definite read for lovers of language and people interested in LGBTQ+ history alike.
December 12, 2025
This took me entirely too long to get around to reading, considering that I knew immediately I was going to buy it when I found it in Gay's The Word back in 2023. As a lover of any and all minoritized languages, I was carrying around this book with me like some kind of talisman where I wasn't allowed to look inside because that would disspell its magic powers.
Now that I've finally read it, none of its powers have gone away. There's something so magical about learning about a language that is so tied to place, time & identity and to read from someone who's deeply aware of that. Language is one of those community-building factors that is so tantalising—as Benedict Anderson said, there is a certain privacy to all languages, but you can learn a language, and that learning promises access to a community. I have enjoyed the glimpses at this community, and the stories have filled my heart.
Now that I've finally read it, none of its powers have gone away. There's something so magical about learning about a language that is so tied to place, time & identity and to read from someone who's deeply aware of that. Language is one of those community-building factors that is so tantalising—as Benedict Anderson said, there is a certain privacy to all languages, but you can learn a language, and that learning promises access to a community. I have enjoyed the glimpses at this community, and the stories have filled my heart.
October 6, 2022
Unfortunately there isn't much to say about Polari, a lingo used by British homosexuals up to the 1950-1960s with borrowings from different dialects and languages. It helped people to meet. to discuss everyday events (usually related to dragging and sex) and to create a community in times when being homosexual meant being threatened by social ostracism and by legal restrictions. Since it was a secret speech associated with homosexuals, there are no recordings of actual speakers, only modern recreations, a fact that makes it difficult to study its structure, its lexicon... Yet, Paul Baker manages to include all the relevant facts about Polari and explaing its genesis, its decline and its modern revival within certain gay groups. Bona lavs to Polari!
December 25, 2022
A fascinating and authoritative history of the “secret” language of gay people in the mid 20th century, tracing its linguistic roots and following it through to the present day. Based on theories of linguistics and years of research, it avoids academic jargon to provide a clear and lucid story, putting it into the context of 20th-century LGBT+ history and culture.
July 11, 2019
Quite unabashedly brilliant ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
November 13, 2019
Fascinating topic, written in a really engaging way. Loved it.
January 26, 2021
Trigger warnings: homophobia
A fascinating linguistic look at how our culture has changed over time and the importance of our history. I loved it.
A fascinating linguistic look at how our culture has changed over time and the importance of our history. I loved it.
February 15, 2021
Such a bona read!
It made me wish I lived in a time when you could walk into a backlit bar and hear it being spoken all around.
At the same time it makes one thankful it isn’t “needed” due to society’s general acceptance of being gay.
I’d be interested in learning it for historical, entertainment, and academic reasons. And to keep this “endangered language” beating and alive!
It made me wish I lived in a time when you could walk into a backlit bar and hear it being spoken all around.
At the same time it makes one thankful it isn’t “needed” due to society’s general acceptance of being gay.
I’d be interested in learning it for historical, entertainment, and academic reasons. And to keep this “endangered language” beating and alive!
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