Boffins studying the language at this year’s Edinburgh Festival have revealed that an old favourite was the most popular word used by stand-up comedians in 2010.
According to the Linguistic Studies Department of Hull’s Vocal Analysis Lab, the word that festival-goers heard most often over the last month was ‘git’.
The boffins claim that this old fashioned term of abuse has made a re-appearance at the top of the charts for the first time in nearly 15 years.
Alan Hoop, director of all that he surveys, says, “’Git’ is the forgotten word of the Festival. Back in 1995 you couldn’t move for gits. It was all he’s a ‘git’, she’s a ‘git’, my mum’s a ‘git’, that ‘git’ is a ‘git’, but it has subsequently dropped off the charts to be replaced by more abrasive words like ‘cockring’ and ‘howl-round’.” The overweight academic continued by wheezing “I for one welcome its return as it has a pithy brevity yet comes smothered in bile”
With the advent of the internet and bloody young people, language is constantly changing and many traditional words have gradually disappeared from use among the performing community at Edinburgh. However ‘git’ – whose original meaning is “a man with whom you would not dance” – was the 'mot de mois' at this year’s event. Professor Hoop added, “’Git’ is a effective way of communicating disgust at another human. Its origins are in the Norse word ‘gid’ but this is disputed by the Norse people”.
Visiting lecturer in Advanced Semantics at Tobermory Institute for Vulgarity, Mike Shandon, claims “git” is not the only abusive term that made a return at Edinburgh. “We heard a lot of more traditional forms of invective at this year’s event such as “headcase”, “Joey” and “Mickey Fuck”. The academic continued “There appears to be a kick against predictive texting which has had an effect on our research but performers have seen the value in the words their mother taught them and especially classic British varieties. ‘Git’ was big in the 80s and was popularised by fictional characters such as Delboy, Blackadder and John Major and people may be feeling a certain amount of nostalgia for it. Personally my favourite was ‘Supercock’ which was popular with Teddy Boys in the 1950s. I’d like to see a lot more ‘Supercock’ coming out of people’s mouths next year but my wife says this is grounds for divorce!”
Experts are already predicting that next year’s event could feature the largest number of words ever heard in Scotland’s Capital and bookmakers have already accepted bids on words such as “Wand-handler”, “Hypo-bi-curious” and “Shed-fucker” bringing in a new age of linguistic fun.