The Null Device

Via Lukelog, some pages on Polari, a secret underground language used by London's gay community in less tolerant days: (1, 2, 3). Polari (sometimes spelled Palare) is believed to have originated from the lingua franca used by mediæval sailors and/or the slang used by carnival showmen, and contains elements from Italian, Yiddish, Romany and Shelta (the language of the Irish Travellers). It's the language in Morrissey's Piccadilly Palare (of course), and appears to be related to the argot used in an allegedly obscene verse, said to date from the time of the Crimean War, and quoted by Neil Gaiman in one of the Sandman books:
Nanty dinarly, the omee of the khazi,
said due bionc peroney, manjaree on the cross.
We'll all have to scarper the latty in the morning,
before the bona omee of the khazi shakes his doss.

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