Word of the Moment: gopping
I went for a walk to Grantchester on Saturday with Sally in Norfolk. As we talked, she kept using a word I’d never heard before. I took it to mean horrible or distasteful from her usage. The word is gopping.
I had no idea where it came from, but from Sally’s background and a little googling, I have concluded she picked it up when she was in the WRAF and I was right about its meaning:
- Gopping
-
Something that is really horrible "That kebab was gopping, it made me ill"
-
Pronounced “goppin’” Army term for something that is disgusting – Can be used as a general observation; eg "tea was gopping tonight" or a specific assessment; eg "thanks sloppo, that chicken was goppin’"
Loosely related to other terms bandied around whenever the vomtechs (vomit-technicians) have been busy:
- mingin’
- howlin’
- gowpin’
- gippin’
To be goppin’ is to run the risk of being called a ‘gopper’ or a Fez.
-
unspeakably awful, usually relates to food or drink
It doesn’t appear to be limited to the armed forces, however. The trusty Urban Dictionary has a few definitions of its own. For the sake of public decency, I’ll only give the first one:
- Gopping
-
something nasty, or horrible (see buche) "eww, thats a gopping buche you got there!"
The word is apparently falling out of misuse, so a Facebook group has been set up in order to attempt to resurrect this allegedly unused word.
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categories: Language and Linguistics
tags: words
series: Word of the moment
last modified: 21st Oct 2011
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lol lol a great post been ages since i used that word and not sure what made me use it on Saturday …. wonder how many other awful words I picked up while I was In the WRAF.
I am much posher now than I used to be
and Can tell Geoff is away as I am sure he would tell me off for using such an awful word 
1 said sally (23rd September 2009 at 7.47 pm BST)
Hehehe – I shall be paying close attention to your vocabulary from now on!
2 said Pandammonium (24th September 2009 at 10.28 am BST)
The closest word I know is gossing that we used to use as kids, when doing a particularly large nasty spit!
3 said Geoff (26th September 2009 at 8.20 am BST)
That’s gobbing where I come from. And it’s gross, whatever word is used for it!
4 said Pandammonium (28th September 2009 at 11.07 am BST)