Jordan from Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada, says that when he used the word gitch, his colleagues from the United States had no idea it meant “underwear.” The Second Edition of A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles has a great entry that includes this term. It’s more commonly seen as gotchies, with several variants, including gotch, gonchies, gaunch, gauch, and gitch. The term derives from similar-sounding Eastern European terms for “underwear.” This is part of a complete episode.
More from this show
A Winter Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon) by Paul Anthony Jones includes some words to lift your spirits. The verb whicken involves the lengthening of days in springtime, a variant of quicken, meaning “come to life.” Another word, breard, is...
Rosalind from Montgomery, Alabama, says her mother used to scold her for acting like a starnadle fool. The more common version of this term is starnated fool, a term that appears particular to Black English, and appears in the work of such writers...