100 Things That Still Make Being Me Just That Bit Better... 87

[sallymn]

The word 'girt', and the fact that Australians are the only people who all use the word regularly, and some of us even the sort of know what it means... just makes me happy every time I hear our anthem.

(Which is usually when earnest sportspeople are mangling and mumbling it because the only line they know is the the one about us being girt...)

Comments

[lost_spook]

I'm from the West Country and "girt" is a word we use a lot - it's our dialect form of great (as in large). But then Australia is certainly girt in that sense, too.

(e.g. "He had a girt big tractorrrrrrr and drank ciderrrrr all day, me luvverr." :lol:)

I know what the other girt is, too. We here in Britain are also girt. But not in the West Country sense, usually.

;-)

[sallymn]

Definitely different girts :)

A lot of Aussies who've been forced to learn the anthem as a kid (and promptly forgot it) quite possibly think girting can only bee done by sea.... certainly I haven't heard that meaning used in any other context...

[watervole]

It's clearly related to the word 'girdle' in some way.

[sallymn]

Yep, the online dictionary says "before 950; Middle English girden, Old English gyrdan" which would be where they both come from.

But girdle doesn't scan with the music, I guess, and also wouldn't be nearly as easy for comedians to poke fun at :)

[lost_spook]

:-)

My Mum had a Girt Aunt Gert.

Well, I know both contexts. I think I read too many old-fashioned things! It does tend to be archaic usage, really. I bet I sang it in hymns and things like that.

[sallymn]

IT is hard to imagine that names like Gert/Gertie, Marge (which was Mum's 'nickname', short for Margaret of course) and Gladys will come back into fashion some day...

[pebblerocker]

I remember James Herriot receiving a phone call requesting a castration on a "twiltin' gurt 'oss", so it must be a Yorkshire word as well!

[sallymn]

That's rather wonderful... if totally incomprehensible these days...