In discussing the German low-life cant called Rotwelsch, Mark Glanville (Books, 9 January) referred in passing to Polari, ‘the language of gay English subculture’, being used ‘by members of a marginalised group to converse without being understood by outsiders’.
I’ve never been convinced by this description of Polari. Undercover policemen in Soho before 1967 may not have been the sharpest knives in the drawer, but they did share the speech of those among whom they moved.
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