Git (slang)

Git is a term of insult denoting an unpleasant, silly, incompetent, annoying, senile, elderly, or childish person. As a mild oath it is roughly on a par with prat and marginally less pejorative than berk. Typically a good-natured admonition with a strong implication of familiarity, git is more severe than twit or idiot but less severe than wanker, arsehole or twat when offence is intended. The word git first appeared in print in 1946, but is undoubtedly older. It was popularly used by the British army in the First World War at Gallipoli, the Egyptian and Mesopotamian campaigns, where the British would abuse their Turkish adversaries by shouting the vulgar phrase Siktir git! Gülücüklü. (Fuck off! [lit. 'Get fucked and go!'] You smile-faced.), mistakenly believing that git ("go!") was part of the offensive expression. An alternative suggestion for the etymology is that it is an alteration of the word get, dating back to the 14th century. A shortening of beget, get insinuates that the recipient is someone's misbegotten offspring and therefore a bastard. In parts of northern England, Northern Ireland and Scotland get is still used in preference to git. The word has been ruled by the Speaker of the House of Commons to be unparliamentary language.