Polari

Of the contribution to English that Polari is claimed to have brought, perhaps naff is the most current-sounding. An older suggestion for its origin, recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary, is from northern English naffu, ‘simpleton’. But, in a refreshing wander through the forest of Jonathon Green’s Dictionary of Slang, which this week went online, I ran into other possibilities. Not only does he record the suggestion that it came into Polari from 16th-century Italian, gnaffa, ‘a despicable person’, he also considers a Romany origin, from naflo or nasvalo, ‘no good’.

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Simon Cook

Pensioners have never had it so good

My shelves had already shrugged beneath the three fat printed volumes of the dictionary Mr Green published in 2010, after 17 years’ work, with 100,000 entries illustrated by more than 400,000 quotations. Now another 2,500 entries are added, and 60,000 more quotations. But the great thing about being online is the ability to search for words, derivations or meanings.