Don’t you remember the children’s card game of Snap? When two cards are the same you go “Snap!”
Hence, “Snap” is the response when someone asks the same question another person was also going to ask, or had the answer to.
PS If you want to pick up a working knowledge of East-end slang, just get addicted to British TV shows like The Bill.
That’s because git is a more recent variant of get. The older pronunciation is still the standard in the North of England.
The earliest example of get in the OED is 1706. From the examples it gives, it seems it meant “bastard” until about the 1940s, when it appears to have become a more generalised insult. FWIW, I think it’s more insulting that “twit”, but less so than “bastard”, arsehole or “wanker”.
I’ve rarely heard it used without a prefatory adjective: stupid, daft, mardy, posh, southern, etc. I suspect it’s something to do with the fact that it sounds a bit weak as a monosyllable.
[tiresome pedantry]Except The Bill is set in South London, not the East End.[/tiresome pedantry]
So how do you explain them calling someone a tit? As in the excamatory: “You tit!”
Git = Rimmer, from Red Dwarf.
Randy Little Git= Marv Albert
Smug little Git= Regis Philbin
hope that helps.
I love gits. Especially cheese gits. Regular gits with butter don’t do much for me, but they seem to be all the rage here in the South (they’ve replaced hash-browns, if you can believe that!)
In the south, I think it means, Please leave the room!!!
Not sure, thinksnow. I think “tit” is more likely to be used in a jocular way than “git”.
Git, tit, twit, bastard, pillick, cloth eared bint… you can have 'em all…
My all time favourite has to be - Berk!
As in: 'Ez a right berk, ain’e!
To me a git or get is someone who is wilfully stupid and not open to logic.
Like the little uniform officials who are also described as “jobsworths”
From the oft heard mini-hitlers who say “I can’t let you do the it’s more than me job is worth”
A tit can be anyone who has has rush of blood to the head and does something silly without thinking.Some folk are like this all the time but often it is used as self criticism like when you know you are going to hurt yourself doing something stupid and still do it anyway.
Few more for you,
Pratt
Knobhound
Tosser
Wanker
Pillock
I’ve not heard “knobhound” before, casdave. Is that local to you, or do I just lead an incredibly sheltered life?
How bout when the Beatles say “and curse Sir Walter Raleigh / He was such a stupid git” in “I’m so tired” on the white album? I dont understand that.
IQM – It makes a lot more sense if you quote it in context:
Raleigh, of course, introduced the English to the vice of tobacco smoking.
IQM, The line before the one you quoted gives it away:
Raleigh was credited (wrongly, I believe) with introducing tobacco to England from the New World.
*The Beatles, being Northerners, rhyme get with cigarette, rather than fit, as a Southerner would do.
But while we’re on the subject…
The subject of Raleigh, potatoes and tobacco is covered in this month’s Fortean Times. According to the article, the first report of a person smoking in England is in 1556 (a sailor in Bristol), and one of Columbus’s sailors was arrested in Barcelona for smoking in the street in 1498. Raleigh was not born until 1552.
They used ‘git’ alot in Harry Potter - so it must be a word thats ok in polite company.
I like ‘wanker’ & ‘arsehole’ though. very expressive!
okay, this is a “personal best” for one of my old threads being revived - over a year later.
nothing ever dies on SDMB, it seems.
I didnt know it was old, I’m just new and looking for something interesting to talk about 
hey, no probs - but were you searching for the word “git,” or reading all the old threads, or what? how’d you come across it?
TomH
I’d no idea that ‘knobhound’ might be purely regional as it gets used round Castleford area so often, there are plenty of reasons it seems to do so.
I’m surprised that you are not familiar,after all, Sheffield is not that for away so this sounds very local to me.
I’ve certainly never heard it either, casdave, but then I am a soft southern lad.