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Polari makes a comeback

posted by davidt on Thursday July 17 2003, @09:00AM
Jesse sends the link:

Lavender linguistics - by Liz Gill, The Guardian (July 14, 2003)

Back in the 1950s it was the language of the gay community, a secret code that could help you pull - and keep you out of prison. Now, writes Liz Gill, it's making a comeback
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  • travada means?
    Lazy Sunbather -- Thursday July 17 2003, @10:03AM (#69123)
    (User #843 Info)
  • If you want to catch a glimpse of palare, beyond Mozzer's crooning check out the film: "Velvet Goldmine" with Ewan McGregor - there is a scene at the club when two fellas are chatting it up in palare - there is even subtitles!
    Interesting article.

    - Finn
    Anonymous -- Thursday July 17 2003, @10:42AM (#69132)

  • Moz speaks palare (Score:1, Informative)

    Lifted this from the "It May All End Tomorrow" site:

    'The "Piccadilly Palare" was slang used in the gay London of the 60s. Several words are used in this song :
    bona - good
    drag - clothes
    vada - see, look at
    eek - face
    riah - hair

    The source that Morrissey used was a radio show from the 1960s called "Round The Horne". It starred Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick, who played two homosexuals. Each show was on a different topic and was named things like "Bona Law" (hence Bona Drag). This show used the words above, plus several others."'

    (http://www.compsoc.man.ac.uk/%7Emoz/)

    Love, Finn
    Anonymous -- Thursday July 17 2003, @10:46AM (#69134)
  • I've wondered about this slang so found this article both informative and interesting.
    This weekend I think I will use some of this, both confusing and enlightening my jaded generation more than I already do.
    What fun!
    ScottyK -- Thursday July 17 2003, @03:01PM (#69174)
    (User #7165 Info)
    Meet me in the alley
  • I used to know a bloke who claimed that 'Bona Drag' was a euphemism for having sex with a transvestite. He wasn't all that far off, in retrospect.
    BBC Scum -- Friday July 18 2003, @05:49PM (#69314)
    (User #8427 Info)
  • If you want to hear palare in full swing you should listen to Kenneth Williams and High Paddick as Julian and Sandy in the sixties radio show Round the Horne. Most of it has been released on tape and CD by the BBC. They have their own compilation too.

    It's very amusing to boot.
    Sonny Jim -- Sunday July 20 2003, @03:56AM (#69353)
    (User #6638 Info)
  • Sharda: what a pity

    Damn, so *that's* what he says at the end of "Cemetry Gates." Or am I hearing things that aren't there?

    That would be Moz' use of "Palare" well before the "Bona Drag" era.

    Also, while the title of that album is obviously a reference to this vocabulary, I had heard also that Bona was the name of a studio Moz had recorded at recently (or perhaps a sublabel - I don't recall...) so maybe there is a some more wordplay going on there. Which, of course, would not be at all unexpected.
    Anonymous -- Tuesday July 22 2003, @08:50AM (#69444)

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