And then there are the Irish. On an Irish police procedural one of the characters kept referring to his mother as “mammy”.
That’s nothing. I was watching this American drama where the lead kept on calling his mother “Mom”.
No joy.
If Ma’am’s good enough for the Queen, it’s good enough for Vera, pet.
The OP may be thinking of ‘giffer’ for ‘old man’, rather than ‘gaffer’ (which I’ve only heard used for ‘boss’ as discussed above).
He’s quoting Tolkien as his example, and Tolkien definitely uses the spelling with an A.
I’ve never heard “giffer”. It must be relatively recent.
You beg to … disagree?
Oh, always, on principle.
I never heard it either but Urban Dictionary has this explanation:
giffer
description of a cap wearing old person (victor meldrew)a cross between git and duffer.
by stuaey September 3, 2004
In Britain, the gaffer was/is the guy who adjusts the stage lights, using a long pole with a hook on the end called a gaff. I thought the guy who lit the gas street lamps was also called a gaffer, and used a gaff, but no luck finding that.
Could it be a corruption of governor/guv’nah?
I would guess more likely of “grandfather” (cf. the now-defunct “gammer” for “grandmother” as in Gammer Gurton’s Needle).
A gaff as any long pole is probably a different derivation.
In nautical terminology, it is a long pole. A gaff rigged sailboat has an upper spar - called a gaff - from which the lower sail is hung (traditionally bent) and above which - in the triangular space between the gaff and the top mast, a triangular sail - the top-sail - may be flown. Otherwise, on board, a gaff is also a useful long pole, usually with a hook on one end used to catch and manipulate things outside the boat. Things like picking up a mooring line or the anchor line under any buoy. You would be foolish not to have one aboard. This also brings about the verb gaff - to catch.
A gaff rigged sailboat may often be called a gaffer. Although generally not as a formal designation of type.
The etymological origin of “gaffer” as a corrupted elision of “godfather” has been established and was cited in posts 3 and 4 of this thread.