BS: Please explain the word 'Git'

Subject: RE: BS: Please explain the word 'Git'
From: mousethief
Date: 23 Jan 10 - 12:00 AM

And then there's the track on an old Monkees album that was entitled "Randy Scouse Git." The lyrics had nothing to do with the title, though. I think they just wanted to confuse their fans by using non-American words.

The title means "horny Liverpudlian bastard" -- which I believe was meant to apply to one of the Fab Four.

Since nobody else has it to hand, I looked up "git" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Just because I happen to have a copy and love showing off.

git slang. [var. GET] In contemptuous use: a worthless person.

Hence I looked up GET; the relevant sense is here:

[2.] b. orig. Sc. and north. In contemptuous use = brat. Also spec. a bastard; hence as a general term of abuse: a fool, idiot. (Cf. GIT.) Now dial. and slang.

(Note: Sc. means Scottish; north. means Northern dialect.)

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Rowan
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 11:05 PM

Did the word make it to Australia? It must have, surely.

It's taken a while, McGrath, but the answer is both yes and no. I suspect most Australians are familiar with the word, and most of its British uses and meanings, from various TV shows that originated in the Old Dart, just as we're familiar with N.Am. uses of it from their TV shows that we've seen. But I don't recall it becoming part of our own vernacular, where, "bastard" (whose equivalence has been pointed out by yourself and others) still has pride of place.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Dave Roberts
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 09:18 PM

I've always understood that a 'get' or 'git' is the bastard son of a bastard (if you see what I mean).

Subject: RE: Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Smedley
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 05:26 PM

Ah, but to connect different sections of this thread. Micky Dolenz of the Monkees, who wrote that song, admitted he took the title from an episode of Till Death Us Do Part, the UK sitcom cited earlier as a text in which 'git' was a favourite term of abuse.

Subject: RE: Please explain the word 'Git'
From: GUEST,Tinker in Chicago
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 05:14 PM

And then there's the track on an old Monkees album that was entitled "Randy Scouse Git." The lyrics had nothing to do with the title, though. I think they just wanted to confuse their fans by using non-American words.

Subject: RE: Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 04:05 PM

Yes - "stupid fucking git" is more likely, aimed at oiks who would never pronounce consonants at the end of a word!

Subject: RE: Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Gurney
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 03:43 PM

I've always understood 'Get' signified 'the offspring of,' and 'Git' was the South-Eastern-English pronunciation of it. Dahn Sowf the pronounce ALL their vowels wrong, of course. :-)

And yes, Kiwis do, too. I call it 'The sucks-sacks-sex syndrome.'   But of course, everyone speaks English with an accent, whilst proclaiming stoutly that they don't.

Subject: RE: Please explain the word 'Git'
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 03:37 PM

Blimey! was that, like, THE Morrissey who posted that terse "test" bit? :0

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 01:23 PM

I was told in the days of my youth, that a 'get', was the 7th bastard son, of a 7th bastard son.

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Alan Day
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 11:57 AM

I had the pleasure of chatting to Tony Booth on the way up to London on the Gatwick Express (not first class). He was living in Ireland. We had a great chat ,exchanged a few jokes and shook hands on arrival at Victoria. Nice down to earth friendly guy. Not a git.
Al

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Rasener
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 11:51 AM

Used that expression back in the 50's 60's a lot.

If we said You stupid git, it was normally a freindly expression aimed at a friend.

Whereas if we used Get, is was spoken harshly and was tantamount to wanting to punch somebodies head in.

We might say something like

"See that git/get over there"
"Who? that one over there"
"Yes, he's a miserable bastard"

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 11:30 AM

Speak for yourself, John.

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Mr Happy
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 11:07 AM

Git means 'test'?

So the diminutives would be 'little git' = 'testicle'?

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Morris-ey
Date: 22 Jan 10 - 03:23 AM

test

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 08:10 PM

Copied from another thread, which was then deleted.
-Joe Offer-

---

Subject: 'GIT' = that which is aquired
From: GUEST,mO spEA fA
Date: 27-Jan-01 - 04:39 PM

as in "yawnt-a-GIT-ovr-he,NOW!!!"

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Wotcha
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 05:00 PM

Git also spelled "Ghet" (perhaps to accommodate publishers' use of English and censorship) in some North Country writings -- I think the term is used profusely in "Kes" by Barry Golding and in "Billy Liar."
The Aussies's use of the word "Bastard" is summed up by John Clement's rather witty, pre-Australian National Anthem, skit: "For a country that doesn't have a national anthem, it does have a national adjective ... friends will use it to greet each other with phrases such as 'How are you goin', you old bastard, what'll it be?,' ... If a stranger uses the word Bastard, he will need reinforcements ... the best kind of bastard is your friend, but 'That Bastard ...' is indeed a real bastard ... and 'useless, bludgeoned bastard' has no friends at all, but fortunately, is extremely rare ... use the word as much as you like ... just don't say it to anyone ..."

Cheers,
Happy Australia Day!
Brian

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: GUEST,mO spEA fA
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 04:35 PM

"that which is aquired" = "git"

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 01:08 PM

The more I read, the happier I am that I started this thread...it's funny!

- LH

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 12:47 PM

"Git along" is just a Western accent laid on to the expression "Get along!", an imperative to cattle, especially the hare-brained young ones called "dogies". The American Heritage ponders thus:

In the language of the American West, a motherless calf is known as a dogie. In Western Words Ramon F. Adams gives one possible etymology for dogie, whose origin is unknown. During the 1880's, when a series of harsh winters left large numbers of orphaned calves, the little calves, weaned too early, were unable to digest coarse range grass, and their swollen bellies "very much resembled a batch of sourdough carried in a sack." Such a calf was referred to as dough-guts. The term, altered to dogie according to Adams, "has been used ever since throughout cattleland to refer to a pot-gutted orphan calf." Another possibility is that dogie is an alteration of Spanish dogal, "lariat."

A

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 12:44 PM

Serendipity! This thread was immediatley next to the 'Curmdgeon' thread when I looked!

Dave the Curmudgeonly Gnomish Git...

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 12:28 PM

Norton1, my dad was born and raised on a cow ranch in Colorado and I've always seen it spelled "dogies." The Western Colorado drawl that he speaks in it comes out a cross between "dough-gees" and "daw gees", hard to capture it in print. we grew up using "git along" except when my mom was nearby, she insisted on "proper" language, so it became "get" in her vicinity.

kat

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Edmund Flynn (inactive)
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 11:15 AM

Many years ago my mother, a West Virginia girl, told the story of the farmer, whose daughter lamented because she had been unable to attend some local affair.

He is reported to have said "If I'd knowed you wanted to go, I'd 'of seen you git to got to go.
Edmund

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Bernard
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 10:04 AM

Here's Bloozcat's thread about curmudgeons...

Blicky

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: bloozcat
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 06:50 AM

Its funny the word curmugeon should come up....i seem to remember hearing it used on the thursday evening BBC Paul Jones blues show recently and i thought since i had no idea what he meant,and could never recall hearing the word before i presumed it was his old Oxbridge education coming out...have i just lived a blinkered life or do most peaple know that word...what does it mean exactly and whats its origins...

bloozingly yours...

bloozcat....London...England http://communities.msn.co.uk/bluesandfolkmusic

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: GUEST,Micca at Mortys
Date: 27 Jan 01 - 05:58 AM

Spaw ".....And the horse you rode in on" MOG and proud of it, Ya Bas ( the Glaswegian equivalent of git)

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Lox
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 12:13 PM

"Git" can be a more potent insult than it has been given credit for so far.

A "smarmy git" for example is a sychophantic slime ball.

If someone spilled your pint, and you thought that encouraging him to buy you a new one might result in your hospitalization, you might turn to your friends and say "what a total git"

I've never heard a woman called a git, so I think that, like "bastard", It is predominantly a male insult.

As for "Toffee nosed git", this is usually used to describe politicians, judges and the aristocracy. It is by no means endearing, just funny.

lox

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 11:56 AM

Bernard - That is as viable an explanation as any I've heard. Most of the Cowboys of old were only in their teens and had little if any education.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: CamiSu
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 11:49 AM

I would say the word is beginning to make it's way over here. Jessica brought it to our house from Scotland, but with the thousands and thousands of kids reading "Harry Potter" I'm sure it won't be long before it enters the vernacular in other households and schoolyards as well, since Hagrid uses it.

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Bernard
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 11:38 AM

I'd have thought that 'git along' is simply a corruption of 'get along'...

Something like the New Zealander who calls a dead rat a 'did rit'!!

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Bernard
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 11:33 AM

Spaw - that brick that just came hurtling through your window - it wuz me wot chucked it!!

Anonymous Miserable Git

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Bert
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 11:27 AM

Spaw, you silly born git, you forgot Doug R.

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 11:21 AM

I grew up on a cattle outfit and "Git" was a term that meant to move and do so quickly. Usually spoken by the head wrangler or my Dad. Since cows are dumber than posts, and Englishmen were the first major owners of cattle and apparently used it in reference to someone/thing less than intelligent, I would guess that is how it became a Western slang word. "Git along little doggies" was music long before any of the testimonials written here, with the notable exception of the historical analog, I'd say it is a general word with region specific meaning. Even with a Master's Degree I still use the word when telling my dog, horses, or cows to move along. What an interesting thread!!

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 09:26 AM

MUDCAT'S MISERABLE OLD GITS:

Micca, Bill D., Kendall, Spaw, Bert, Bernard, Banjer, Seed, etc.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: JulieF
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 07:37 AM

Use in a contemporay song

Ok I didn't mention my Kids - I thought I'd wait a bit,

But I am free and single , and you're a lying git.

Kirsty MacCall - England 2 Columbia 0

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: mkebenn
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 07:03 AM

Ah, the '60s, if you remember them correctly you weren't there..Mike

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: bill\sables
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 04:30 AM

Tony Booth was maried to Pat Phoenix (Elsie Tanner in Coronation Street) What a pedigree no wonder he shits in saxophones (see thread on Buns night)

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 03:41 AM

Michael Quinion says:
From before 1300 a get was what had been begotten, a child or offspring. But by about 1500 it had started to be used in Scotland and northern England in the sense of misbegotten, a bastard; from there it became a general term of abuse for a fool or idiot. By about 1700 get seems to have lapsed into slang or dialect, only to reappear in the wider language in the 1940s with a different spelling and lacking the associations with illegitimacy. James Joyce uses the older spelling (and meaning) in Ulysses in 1922: "The bloody thicklugged sons of whores' gets!" These days, it's a widely known and used term of abuse in Britain for somebody regarded as totally worthless or useless, most commonly appearing in cries of frustration such as "that stupid git, now look what he's done!".
World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion, 1996-. All rights reserved.

(From World Wide Words, WWW home page)

Steve

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 03:18 AM

From Chambers:

"git (slang) n: a person, used contemptuosly :a fool: a bastard - See also get. [get, offspring, brat]."

I tend to use the word in "you miserable old git" and I would imagine that in my noramal usage (tongue-in-cheek), it would be roughly like calling someone a curmudgeon (?sp).

Jon

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Elise
Date: 26 Jan 01 - 02:59 AM

Well, as far as Git goes, just watch some old Monty Python. Seems to me they use it an awful lot.

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 08:21 PM

I guess I am getting mixed up here McGrath. Was Tony Booth married to Pat Phoenix, who did die?

Murray

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 08:15 PM

Tony Booth is still there I'm pretty sure. I've just checked with the Guardian archives, and they haven't got him as dead - in fact the last mention he had this month, in a piece that suggested that if they were to do a Carry on version of the Tony Blair Witch Project, they'd have to cast Tony Booth as himself, because noone else could do it better.

God though, I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the Blair Family Christmas. You know the way kids so often take after and ally with the grandfather, or the Black Sheep of the family - and when it's the same fella... it must be Tony Blair's nightmare. Tony Booth is not New Labour in any way...Unreconstructed. A Good Lad.

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: wysiwyg
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 08:13 PM

So what means "Ah, git on wi' ye!"

???

Oh!! Is this related to the US slang, "Get it on!"????

~S~

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 07:52 PM

Bill, is Tony Booth still with us ? I seem to remember hearing he had died.

Murray

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 07:36 PM

Very informative. I just love these infor sessions. Helps keep me from being a stupid git. Kindest reguards, Neil

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Matt_R
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 06:27 PM

A toffee-nosed git!

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Zebedee
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 06:13 PM

Thanks, Snuffy. Didn't know that

Ed

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Snuffy
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 06:10 PM

And Blind Scouse - lobscouse with no meat

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 06:05 PM

Or...sort of like "Y'all jest giddadahere! Git! Skeedaddle!"

- LH

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Zebedee
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 05:59 PM

Snuffy, yes

Bill, scouse is an abbreviation of 'lobscouse' which my dictionary defines as "A sailor's dish consisting of meat stewed with vegetables and ship's biscuit etc." which was apparently popular in Liverpool.

The dictionary also considers 'git' to be a varient of 'get' rather than the other way round, both deriving from 'beget' not 'illegitimate' as mentioned earlier.

Ed

Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git'
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 25 Jan 01 - 05:56 PM

Yes he did.

Git is quite often affectionate, except on the Fast show, where the two old gits are anything but....

LTS