h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

'Get shot' and 'get shut' were both used almost interchangeably where I grew up in Hull and in West and South Yorkshire. It seemed to me to have a broader application than 'get rid of' although I'd be hard-pressed to expand on that

t.

I think 'get shot of' has a more final air to it than 'get rid of'. To get rid of something is to remove it but without any implication of finality. Whereas you get shot of something has a more final meaning to it. Getting shot of something implies, to me anyway, that it ain;t going to come back, definitly. Whilst rid also has something of this to it, it is less final.

Although that could just be how it was used in my family.

I would disagree with Pedro and say that the denizens of Wetherfield are getting shut of something or someone. Be it a metaphorical book, door or box or just a corruption of shot - letting it fly out to whither it may, the suggestion is that you don't want what or whoever to come back.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (quoted here: http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/51/messages/439.html ), the phrase was originally to be shut of something or someone. The citations go back to the 16th century, so 'get shot of' is the corruption. Having said that, I've heard 'get shot of' more often than 'get shut of'. Unfortuately, the definition in the OED gives no help as to the origin of the phrase.

I can't say I've ever heard "get shot of", but I have heard "get shut of" frequently.

Ah, that's interesting. 'Get Shut' goes back to the 1500's slap bang in the middle of the great vowel shift when I believe (I.e. haven't checked it out!) that 'u' went to 'o' which could also be a contributing factor?

Or am I overcomplicating things?

I've always understood it to be "get shot of" - but I confess I never thought about where it came from.

>> ...am I overcomplicating things? <<


I don't think that's possible.
Complications I mean, and not the Great Vowel shift which of course was not only possible, but probable and probably predictable with all them Renaissance Men running round babbling forrin langwitches.



I'm delighted to learn there is a current and ongoing variable between shot and shut throughout the British Isles and that I am the one to have brought this dichotomy to the general attention of the British public where-e'er they roam. May you all take the question forth on your weekend rounds and gather further input from the denizens of whatever establishments you might frequent.

I'm even more glad to see that 'shut' is the more likely original and especially in the context of 'closure'. It offers insight into the power once held by books and the functionaries of literacy and accountancy (both financial and theological).

The connotations of 'shot' would likely be offensive to many gentler souls and too provocative for rougher beings to (have been allowed to) survive. (I hesitate to remind us of a rather brutal and cruel method used to lower the number of Prisoners of War by tying them to the mouths of cannon...)

As for 'rid', I question the comparison of degree that suggests it is somehow a less permanent condition than 'shut' especially if shut really is not shot. For me 'rid' has inexplicable biblical overtones in expressions that suggest we can "rid the whirled of... (assorted enemies, evils, diseases, rodents, corruptions and the snakes of Ireland)".
Shooting may even be involved in many of these 'good' riddances.


~jwf~

For the Brits amoungst us, a license for pedantry
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/oct/04/localgovernment.english

"Britain's baffling collection of ungrammatical, misspelt, out of date and plain wrong public signs is to have a national audit, with the public recruited as error spotters."

Get spotting!

I was recently struck by the number of words in English beginning with 'ki' that relate to home, heart and hearth. It's as if there is an 'auto-mod-a-pea' feeling in the sound of 'ki' that suggested 'closeness' or 'family' to our ancient pre-Roman ancestors.

The 'ki' section of dictionary is relatively short and well worth a read through. Most of those I list below are mono-syllables. There are a few others and they all seem to have 'no known source' or are listed as 'probably' Scandinavian, Icelandic or Dutch. They all relate to homely and familiar things.

The only one the dictionaries seem really sure of is 'king' which is from the olde englishe 'cycene' - and is a Latin phonetic spelling of the local word meaning 'native land'. The cy being pronounced as 'ki' as in:

kid
kip
kit
kitchen
kith
kin
kinder-garden
kindling
king

And I suspect like 'native land', those I mention have a 'homely' feeling to them and probably are based on the same savage pagan tongue that gives us 'king'.

It is also noteworthy how many strange forrin words we've adopted that also start with 'ki'. They come from all over the whirled. From kibbutz to kiwi to kilogram.

~jwf~

It was my understanding (from undergraduate days far back in the last century) that king came from Anglo-Saxon "cyning" (pronounced 'cooning')

The 11th line of Beowulf has:

"thaet waes god cyning"

meaning "that was a good king".

"Kibble" would seem fairly homely.So is "kick".
"Kirtle" - an old word for skirt - presumably has the wrong pronunciation for your purposes.
One of my beautiful Irish daughters in law, who spells her name with a 'C' tells me there are no 'Ks' in Irish. Does this mean that all the Irish placenames are English transliteration then.Where's Gnomon when you need him - gone to "Kork"
who is slightly worried that there are still other people in the world who read dictionaries for pleasure.

Kiss

Homely: check
Familiar: check

Is it coincidental that alongside all these words concerning family, up pops 'kill'? Don't answer now. Wait until you've got them all together at Christmas.

Kork in Irish would be Corcaigh, I think.

The ki- started me thinking about 'kirk' in Scots and 'Kirche' in German, if not 'church' in English. Another word with communal connections.

The dictionary I was reading said 'cycene' (likely pronounced 'kikn') meant 'native land' but that's just a fancy way of saying 'home'. So yes, 'cyning' would be king of said castle.

Yes, I like to think Kill is probably from the same 'home' based coordinates. The LL sound is made with the tongue flexing from the upper front teeth to a wide flat position touching the upper teeth on both sides. This is not unlike a snake or other predatory lip smacking and low growling. And when appendixed to 'ki' probably means there's gonna be trouble in paradise.

Similar phonetic/emotive thoughts might be applied to Kiss which (well spotted! ) I deliberately left out, along with kitten (soft and cuddly) and kink (bent) and kick (an abrupt and definitive assertion of rights) and kiosk (a forrin word with no relation).

I know we've talked about 'kip' here before as meaning mostly 'sleep' these days and it has been duly noted that it came from the idea of a pile of rags or hides used as a bed (and for a while it even meant brothel) but the same dictionary advises that its furthest origin is the hide of young goat (kid) and subsequently a pile of such hides.

All of which puts a whole new light on Kipling.
And maybe Kitchener too.

And the Irish connection is fascinating! Because perhaps preserved in the early Garlic we can find similar homey feelings expressed in Killarney, Kildare, Kilcullen, and Kilkenny. But a site dedicated to Irish place names http://www.dublin1850.com/general/placenames.html seems to think these are all from 'cill' which they say means church.

Well I say that's post-Roman thinking and all too easily supported by comparison to Latin and German words for church. And sadly, by the long history of families having to hide in churches every time some invading army came along and burned all their homes - which happened all too frequently over the past 2000 years.

My own Irish ancestral home had three churches at the crossroads and folks would hide in which ever one seemed most appropriate depending on who was invading on any given day. Tracing my ancestry I find births, marriages and deaths for most individuals are registered in three different places.


Hey it's Friday!
Drink a fish for Hayzeus!

~jwf~

Kil- meaning church. Is it just a variant of kir(k)? There's a place near Glasgow called Old Kilpatrick; apparently it's the *real* place St P. lived in before he was kidnapped or whatever. And leads onto the fact that Patrick was obviously a well-to-do laddie, cos his name derives from Patricus meaning patrician. Which is quite interesting..

Cill (pronounced kill) is certainly the Irish for church. I know it is related to the word cell in English (a small stone room), but I don't know if it is related to kirk / church.

In the list of cute little things, kitten is interesting, because the word cat obviously gets made small by changing the a to i and adding 'en'. The c becomes k just so that it doesn't get pronounced 'sitten'. Are there other words where this 'smallification' process changes broad vowels to slender?

Makes a personal list of "cute little things". The very cute little grandaughter is now a month old. Being called Maggie definitely involves a vowel shift from Margaret
Then runs down list of names of young animals - most of them don't seem to have much linguistic relation to their parents.The one we're not allowed to talk about doesn't have a single letter in common.

the word cat obviously gets made small by changing the a to i and adding 'en'

What is so obvious about it?