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Alan OBrien
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2005 2:39 pm
Post subject: Polari |
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Polari - the gay argot of the 60s. I am not sure of the spelling but it
rhymes with the Italian 'volare'. It was made popular by Kenneth Williams &
Hugh Paddick in radio programmes presented by Kenneth Horne.
What is the origin of the word 'polari'? No acrronyms please.
--
Work like the ponies in coalmines.
Dance like the teardrop explodes.
Love like you're Frank in Blue Velvet.
Sing as though your little throat would burst.
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Daniel James
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2005 3:03 pm
Post subject: Re: Polari |
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In article news:<OM_8f.34841$iD.13151@fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk>, Alan
OBrien wrote:
| Quote: | What is the origin of the word 'polari'? No acrronyms please.
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According to the NSOED it descends from "parlyaree" which is a
(deliberate?) corruption of the Italian "parlare" meaning "to speak".
(I can just hear Kenneth Williams saying "Oh, Yes, we like to parlyaree the
old Italiano, don't we Sandy?")
... but you could have looked that up for yourself?
Cheers,
Daniel. |
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Raymond S. Wise
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2005 3:04 pm
Post subject: Re: Polari |
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Alan OBrien wrote:
| Quote: | Polari - the gay argot of the 60s. I am not sure of the spelling but it
rhymes with the Italian 'volare'. It was made popular by Kenneth Williams &
Hugh Paddick in radio programmes presented by Kenneth Horne.
What is the origin of the word 'polari'? No acrronyms please.
|
Some acronyms are true etymologies, you know.
In this case, it looks as if the word may come from Italian, having the
sense of "speech, talk." Michael Quinion has written an article about
"Polari" in his *World Wide Words* Web site at
http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/polari.htm
He doesn't come right out and say the origin of the term is from
Italian, just that it means "speech, talk" in Polari itself and that
the majority of terms in Polari come from Italian.
He also points out that some Polari terms came from _Lingua Franca,_
which means that "Polari" itself might be a word from another Romance
language. On a page discussing Lingua Franca (on a site which also has
a section on Polari), the author says the following:
From
http://www.uwm.edu/~corre/franca/edition2/lingua.2.html
"Observers noted that the words constituting this pidgin were mainly of
Romance origin, in particular, Italian, Spanish and Occitan, a language
occupying an intermediate position between Spanish and French."
I expect the reason Quinion didn't identify Italian as the source of
the word "Polari" is that we really can't say with any precision which
of the Romance languages the term came from.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
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Alan OBrien
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2005 2:13 am
Post subject: Re: Polari |
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"Daniel James" <wastebasket@nospam.aaisp.org> wrote in message
news:VA.00000c92.0284cdb3@nospam.aaisp.org...
| Quote: | In article news:<OM_8f.34841$iD.13151@fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk>, Alan
OBrien wrote:
What is the origin of the word 'polari'? No acrronyms please.
According to the NSOED it descends from "parlyaree" which is a
(deliberate?) corruption of the Italian "parlare" meaning "to speak".
(I can just hear Kenneth Williams saying "Oh, Yes, we like to parlyaree
the
old Italiano, don't we Sandy?")
.. but you could have looked that up for yourself?
|
Thanks; I don't have the NSOED. I *could* have looked it up on the
internet - but that would be considered cheating. |
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Raymond S. Wise
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Oct 31, 2005 3:56 am
Post subject: Re: Polari |
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Alan OBrien wrote:
| Quote: | "Daniel James" <wastebasket@nospam.aaisp.org> wrote in message
news:VA.00000c92.0284cdb3@nospam.aaisp.org...
In article news:<OM_8f.34841$iD.13151@fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk>, Alan
OBrien wrote:
What is the origin of the word 'polari'? No acrronyms please.
According to the NSOED it descends from "parlyaree" which is a
(deliberate?) corruption of the Italian "parlare" meaning "to speak".
(I can just hear Kenneth Williams saying "Oh, Yes, we like to parlyaree
the
old Italiano, don't we Sandy?")
.. but you could have looked that up for yourself?
Thanks; I don't have the NSOED. I *could* have looked it up on the
internet - but that would be considered cheating.
|
So if I look up something in, say, MWCD11 via my online subscription
that is cheating, while if I look it up in my paper copy of the same
work, that's OK?
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com |
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