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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Origin of the word Chat


David_Blanchard

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I was under the impression that the word 'chat' originated from the trenches of the Western Front. Men would 'chat' killing lice and talking during a lull in trench routine.

However, in todays Guardian a letter bought by Chris de Burgh for £14,400 dating from the Christmas Truce of 1914 uses the term chat as though it was in common useage when he writes back home to his 'Mater':

'We also exchanged smokes etc and had a decent chat.'

Was the word chat or chatting perhaps then, used as an expression in the Indian Army before the Great War?

Regards

David

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I too thought it was an expression born of the trenches. Expensive letter !

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The word "chit" or "chitty" is I believe of Indian origin meaning small piece of paper or note. Could chat be a derivision?

Lionboxer

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I had a quick search and it seems chat is a shortened version of chatter which comes from:-

c.1225, chateren "to twitter, gossip," earlier cheateren, chiteren, of echoic origin. Chatterbox is 1774.

Evelyn

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Thanks for your replies.

I wonder where the term chat meaning louse/lice comes from?

David

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Cannot verify this version but a couple of years ago i was told that 'Chat' is a type of drug once in common use in Africa, mainly Somalia/Ethipoia! and now used by some in the UK.

Apparently you take the drug by chewing on the end of a chat root and this is enjoyed in a social environment sitting around with others talking laughing etc. therefore wnen you get a goup of them sitting around chewing the root and talking they are 'chatting'.

Don't know if i believe it or not but I like this account of the word.

regards,

Scottie.

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No 'once' about it -- usually spelled 'khat'or 'qat', it's still consumed extensively in the Horn of Africa despite attempts to ban it, because it makes people so lethargic that no work is ever done. Studies have shown that it may boost male fertility, but can also cause liver disease.

Around 20 million people use khat in East Africa and the Arabian peninsula, where trade is open and legal.

It is legal in Britain, although some of its active substances are banned, and it is illegal in the United States, Canada, Norway and Sweden.

According to Websters, the word 'chat' , meaning idle conversation, dates back to Middle English in the 15th century.

cheers Martin B

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I'm sure i've read somewhere that 'chats' comes from chattels which in the 18th/19th centuries referred to livestock and cattle. I believe the word became associated with the lice which infested beggars as these were the only 'chattels' they had.

Sharon

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Cannot verify this version but a couple of years ago i was told that 'Chat' is a type of drug once in common use in Africa, mainly Somalia/Ethipoia! and now used by some in the UK.

Apparently you take the drug by chewing on the end of a chat root and this is enjoyed in a social environment sitting around with others talking laughing etc. therefore wnen you get a goup of them sitting around chewing the root and talking they are 'chatting'.

Don't know if i believe it or not but I like this account of the word.

regards,

Scottie.

Qat..is the Name of the Drug,it is a Bush that grows Wild in Ethiopia and somalia,when chewed it has a strong Amphetamine effect. :The Somali Warlords dish it out to their Men as it Hypes them up and makes them Fearless.

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The Oxford English Dictionary sites "Chat" as meaning lice as early as 1690. Chatts = lice.

The first mention of "chat" meaning talk dates according to the OED to 1440. The York Mystery Play contains the line "I charge you and your chiftan [sic] bat ze [sic] chatt for no chaunce [sic]. In 1485, it sites "Thoughe I shulde all day tell Or chat with my ryme dogrell" [sic for all the mistakes].

The source appears to be "an onomatopoeic abbreviation of CHATTER.

NMG

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It's another word our troops picked up in India I believe. A fellow or place that was lice-infested was 'chatty' and having 'a chat' was heading off to a quiet corner to de-louse.

Holmes mentions this in both Tommy and Redcoat, I seem to recall.

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Hi there,

Heres another one for you.

In Royal Naval parlance a rating who was scruffy/dirty (lousy?) was described as "chatty".

It was also used as a derogatory term for a rating from the Chatham Division.

My father (ex RN CPO) often used it to describe anything that was dirty or untidy eg a pub, room, worn shirt etc.

Regards

Pabbay

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  • 13 years later...

On a tour of the Black Watch Museum in Perth, Scotland we were told that chit chat came from the time the regiment served in the trenches and referred to the sound that lice made (chit) when burnt with a hot wire run over the seams of clothing (chat).

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  • 3 weeks later...

Were not lice known as chats in common parlance - hence chatting ( as per rats and ratting)? 

Edited by David Filsell
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Yes, and one of my grandfather's letters from 1917 refers to a bizarre case where a prankster put 2 lice (Chat) into his singlet just before inspection, presumably to shock the inspecting officer:  "One dirty bunter put two in his singlet just before inspection.  He used to have a look every 5 minutes to see poor Chat had not escaped."

 

image.png.c69a7abdbb4dbd1a28e794f2f312cd89.png

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

WSL,

 

Your letter raises another word, “bunter”.

I can only recall Billy Bunter as a schoolboy hero in a comic book.

 

Regards,

JMB

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…… great letter …. is it not "dirty brute"?

Edited by TullochArd
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Agree, I read it as 'brute' also.

 

Thanks, Bryan

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'Chat' for an informal conversation was certainly in use long before 1914 - it's in the Pied Piper poem by Robert Browning of 1842, which you should all have heard at school...

 

"Rats!
They fought the dogs, and killed the cats,
   And bit the babies in the cradles,
And eat the cheeses out of the vats,
   And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats
      By drowning their speaking
      With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats."

 

I sometimes hear people describing the use of 'kids' for children as a modern Americanism, when several Kipling poems of the 1890s use it as a current idiom. 

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3 hours ago, TullochArd said:

is it not "dirty brute"?

Wow!  After all these years, I completely agree with you and I misread it so many times ...

 

Thanks for sharp eyes.

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But what are chats in Browning’s poem? Surely not lice.

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Our feathered friends are Chats, sometime known as Chat-thrushes, perhaps they were local songbirds for the men.

Dave

 

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