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BS: Please explain the word 'Git'
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Subject: BS- Please explain the word 'Git' From: Little Hawk Date: 25 Jan 01 - 02:51 PM I have seen the word "git" used frequently in postings by residents of the U.K., and I would like an explanation... 1. How do you pronounce it? Soft "g" or hard "g"? 2. What is its derivation? Is it an abbreviation? 3. What does it mean? I get the general meaning, as in "stupid git"...it's obviously pejorative, but I'd like a little more detailed info on that. 4. Is it a high class or low class word...or both? Thanks awfully, chaps! - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git' From: Bert Date: 25 Jan 01 - 03:01 PM Usually pronounced with a hard G. But it is derived from the word Illegitimate, so it probably started out with a soft G. Although it means the same it doesn't really carry the same vehemence as bastard. Usually friendly, almost a term of endearment, when used to a friend. Bert. |
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Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git' From: Little Hawk Date: 25 Jan 01 - 03:04 PM Ah hah! Illegitimate! Well, thank you, that explains it. - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git' From: InOBU Date: 25 Jan 01 - 03:14 PM OH LH With all the rankor, it is such a temptation to answer that question of yours as.. so and so is a git... Git should sound like a westerner saying git going... git along little doggies, git MAV a drink, son, (that is a close as I am going to let myself go with this... or my wife will give me that dissaproving, "BAD BEAR, LARRY!" look)... Your pal, the ol' grey headed git... Larry |
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Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git' From: Doctor John Date: 25 Jan 01 - 03:21 PM Interesting, Bert, but I've also heard this one: it's sometimes pronounced "get" and certainly "you daft get" was common in Liverpool in my boyhood, years ago; can't say now though. So it could come from begotten ('got, 'get...) - so ill-begotten. Dr John |
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Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git' From: wysiwyg Date: 25 Jan 01 - 03:29 PM Well, in breeding horses, the offspring of the sire (the daddy horse!!) are called his "get." Not just one or two critters... the whole crop, through his lifetime, as I understand it. As in, "Speedy Gonzales' get did not inherit his racing abilities, although his white blaze and socks demonstrated a certain degree of prepotency." Would this ne part of the transmission of language and the culture of appreciating high-blood horses, coming with upper-crust Brits to the US, long ago? Part of the occasional US affectation of borrowing of high-class English talk? I didn't know this term was applied to human beans, and pejoratively! ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git' From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 25 Jan 01 - 04:07 PM I think bothy explanation are right. As I understand it, the etymology is as Dr John and WYSIWYG say, it just means offspring, begotten; the insult has the implication that it's misbegotten, so bastard.
But I wouldn't say it's a milder form of bastard, bothy words can be as mild or as hostilee as you wish, depends on how they're used.
The classic case with bastard is supposed to be the pre4-war Test Match in Australia, where the linguistic rules on these matters seem to be closer to those back in the British Isles than they are in the USA. An English player complained that one of the Aussies had called him a bastard. The Aussie captain apologised profusely - then he turns to his side and says "Which one of you bastards called tghis bastard a bastard?"
So Americans don't say git! You learn these things here that you'll never learn any other way, except maybe in embarrassing circumstances. Did the word make it to Australia? It must have, surely. |
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Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git' From: mkebenn Date: 25 Jan 01 - 04:33 PM I remember this word from one of Lennon's poems from the 60's{Spaniard in his own write?} and have used it ever since. I just assumed a meaning, and I wasn't far off.. Mike |
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Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git' From: Zebedee Date: 25 Jan 01 - 05:42 PM Mentioning Lennon gives me the opportunity to quote his, perhaps, most amusing use of the word 'get'
I'm so tired, I'm feeling so upset From I'm So Tired on the 'White Album' Ed |
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Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git' From: bill\sables Date: 25 Jan 01 - 05:43 PM In the UK TV sit com "Till Death Us Do Part" Alf Garnett, played by Warren Mitchell, called his son in law, played by Tony Booth, a "Scouse Git" Scouse is the collective name for anyone from Liverpool (as Geordie is anyone from Newcastle). I do beleve that "scouse" is also a type of stew made in Liverpool. Tony Booth is the father in law of Tony Blair our prime minister. I wonder if he calls his son in law a git, if he does he will not be alone. Bill |
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Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git' From: Snuffy Date: 25 Jan 01 - 05:50 PM Didn't Lennon do two books "In his own write" and "A Spaniard in the works"? |
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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 |
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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
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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 |
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Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git' From: Snuffy Date: 25 Jan 01 - 06:10 PM And Blind Scouse - lobscouse with no meat |
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Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git' From: Zebedee Date: 25 Jan 01 - 06:13 PM Thanks, Snuffy. Didn't know that Ed |
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Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git' From: Matt_R Date: 25 Jan 01 - 06:27 PM A toffee-nosed git! |
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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 |
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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 |
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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~ |
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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. |
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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 |
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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. |
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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 |
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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 |
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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) |
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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 |
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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
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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 |
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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!! |
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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. |
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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 |
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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'!! |
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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.
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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 |
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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 |
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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) |
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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 |
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Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git' From: Bernard Date: 27 Jan 01 - 10:04 AM Here's Bloozcat's thread about curmudgeons... |
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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 |
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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 |
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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... |
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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 |
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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 |
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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" |
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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 ..."
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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!!!" |
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Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git' From: Morris-ey Date: 22 Jan 10 - 03:23 AM test |
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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'? |
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Subject: RE: BS- Please explain the word 'Git' From: Dave MacKenzie Date: 22 Jan 10 - 11:30 AM Speak for yourself, John. |
