#Also I'm like 60% certain I'm going to do sort of a mix of snippets here leading up to like a three shot culmination posted on Ao3

[literallybyronic]

hi! your post abt polari in the sandman popped up on my dash, and while i haven't watched the sandman at all, i do have an interest in polari. do you have any resources you'd recommend for someone wanting to learn about the history? books, documentaries, whatever. a lot of the stuff i've found is the same surface-level information, but i'd love to dive a bit deeper, especially its usage diachronically. thought i'd ask since u seem knowledgeable. thanks!

Hope you don't mind, but I've put some Sandman-specific commentary at the bottom as I've had several people in the tags of that post asking stuff as well so it's easier to just make one response to the whole thing and link to it. I'm also not by any means an expert, I learned of Polari initially from 70s-80s UK tv comedies and then learned a bit about it studying linguistics in general. Unfortunately there's not as much material out there as one would hope, being that while in use it was mainly a sort of under-the-table thing used so someone who heard a snippet of your conversation couldn't immediately clock you or what you were saying, and when being gay became legal/less stigmatized it fell out of fashion because it wasn't necessary. But if you want truly thorough academic sources, particularly that analyze its roots, Paul Baker is the man you want. Polari: The Lost Language of Gay Men and Fabulosa! The Story of Polari, Britain's Secret Gay Language are about the history of it, and Fantabulosa: A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang has a lexicon of Polari and other LGBT-specific terminology (mostly 20th cent. IIRC) Now, if you want to get hold of these works you'd likely have to find them in a library or purchase them. If you know of a site that offers discount or free uni textbooks, you may find it there as well- I know I have seen these sorts of sites floating around tumblr but I don't remember them off the top of my head. If you want something completely free and easy to grab, I found this paper (UofM dissertation) which seems like it has a decent, fairly detailed overview of the language as well as details of some of the initial linguistic sources of various bits & pieces of it- it has many different bits from different sources like thieves' cant, carnivallers' cant, yiddish, romani, italian, latin, sailing slang, cockney rhyming slang, it's a bit of a mixed bag. If you want to hear full Polari in conversation, Putting On The Dish is a short film almost entirely in Polari. Note that full Polari is near-unintelligible unless you know it- this video is a presentation on Polari that breaks down Putting On The Dish line by line into modern layspeak so you can get an idea of what's actually being said in the film.

Now, while full Polari went very quickly out of fashion after the decriminalization of male homosexuality in England in the 60s because it was no longer necessary to avoid arrest, certain specific terms and bits of slang were carried through into mainstream gay and drag culture in the latter half of the 20th century and the populace at large were made aware of them via pop culture- duck/ducky among them. Which is why throwing it haphazardly into Hob's speech is an issue if you don't know the etymology- if you're not a granny talking about her grandchildren in an old fashioned way, but a young (appearing) man talking to another man in casual conversation, it's extremely camp. It would be something like having him go around calling people "hunty" today, minus the AAVE connotations. Could he get away with it today, in the 2020s? Sure, although it might come off a bit strange for a younger guy to be throwing out nigh Dame Edna levels of old-fashioned queenieness. But during the 80s, during the renewed backlash against homosexuality that occurred during Margaret Thatcher's term and the passing of Section 28 and the AIDS crisis? Not so long after decriminalization, but long enough that the entirety of Polari slang wasn't a secret anymore, long enough that everyone knew what it meant when you used that sort of language, even if they couldn't parse just what you were saying? The decade in which you can find "ducky" used as a homophobic slur on BBC One in one of the most popular britcoms ever made? Not so much. Sure, it wasn't arrest worthy anymore. If you were out in pop culture/performing arts circles, or even among college students, likely no one would bat an eye. But if you wanted to keep your respectable establishment job teaching children of conservative parents and not have whatever the 80s UK equivalent of One Million Moms was breathing down your neck trying to get you fired "for the children", it wasn't something you would do unless you were very sure you were safe being out in that particular company and that it wasn't going to get back to your employers. So, while I'm not saying DON'T use it, I'm saying, be aware of its context in the 20th century in general, and in that time period (1970s-1990s) specifically, its potential to be used as a stereotype and/or slur, and when and how it would be no big deal to use it and when it would be potentially dangerous.