‘It sounds like Polari to me,’ said my husband, who can remember Julian and Sandy (Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams) on Round the Horne, 1965 to 1968. They used Polari, an assorted camp slang popular in the years when homosexual acts were still illegal.
It was the phrase Genny Lex that my husband had heard, popping up as a jocular name for the general election. This annoys people. On that old-fashioned social medium, X, someone with the handle bewilderedyorks posted: ‘*Opens Twitter* *Reads post about “the genny lex”* *Burns iPhone*.’
‘Right, if you’re gonna call it the gennylex, I’m calling the protagonists Richie Soons and The Starmeister General,’ wrote GlennyRodge, who has a reputation on X for humour.
Genny Lex, with its air of a personal name, has been floating about since 2022. On 20 October, Liz Truss resigned. Someone on Twitter mounted an opinion poll: ‘Genny lex?’ The answers were: Yes, 92.3
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