Quick links
gotchies
DCHP-2 (Jul 2016)
Spelling variants:gotch, gonch, gonchies, gaunch, gauch, gitch
1n. — predominantly Western Canada & Ontario, informal, slang, diminutive
underwear.
Type: 1. Origin — The term is a loanword from Eastern European languages (cf. Serbian and Croatian gaće, Hungarian gatya), originally brought to Ontario and Prairie Canada by immigrants. A survey conducted in Ontario and bordering regions in the US asked about the prank also called a "wedgie" (see meaning 2; see Chambers (1994-2004, question 74; 2012)). It did not elicit any responses from Americans such as gotchie pull or gotchie, the two most common responses from Ontarians (see meaning 2). US respondents exclusively used "wedgie". Thus, its origin is most likely Canadian. In British Columbia the term and its variants are much less widely known (Chambers 1994-2004). However, the oldest quotations in our database are from British Columbia (see the first two 1987 quotations). Chart 1 shows that gotchies is almost exclusively used in Canada.
The regional dimension cannot be tested with the Frequency Index method due to low or no hits for most variants in the provincial domains. Among them, only gonch figures prominently enough. This term, however, shows a clear western Canadian and Northwest Territories provenance (see Chart 2).
See also COD-2, which marks the term, s.v. "gotchies" as "Cdn slang" and as a diminutive of gotch (s.v. ibid).
The regional dimension cannot be tested with the Frequency Index method due to low or no hits for most variants in the provincial domains. Among them, only gonch figures prominently enough. This term, however, shows a clear western Canadian and Northwest Territories provenance (see Chart 2).
See also COD-2, which marks the term, s.v. "gotchies" as "Cdn slang" and as a diminutive of gotch (s.v. ibid).
Quotations
1987
The reaction from readers was different. The column had what you might call visibility. When someone in public recognizes my name, they don't say "Oh, you're the guy who wrote that brilliant expose of city council's financial fumbling," they say, "Oh, you're the guy in the gaunchies." Two weeks ago, almost a year after the picture appeared, a cabbie asked me how my diet was coming.
1987
Marg Aasen of Touchstone isn't quite sure how [John Travolta]'s gonchies ended up in town but thinks they were given to a fellow actor when Travolta was shooting a film here last fall. Anyway, here they are and autographed - Katharine Hepburn's own bathrobe being your other possible hedge against inflation. (She's here shooting a film called Guest Appearance.)
1987
There was lots of Flashdance but no flashing. The male strippers only made it down to their gotchies - the Royal York didn't give them a licence to bare their essentials.
1993
Something stuck to gotchies. Little piece paper, like postage stamp. Why postage stamp on gotchies? What kind of weirdo mails gotchies?
1998
Katherine Barber of Oxford University Press suggested the reader buy a copy because she wasn't going to spend time to research it all, but she did offer five interesting examples: corporate welfare bum, had the biscuit, bargoon (as in bargain), beer-slinger and gotch (some regions of Canada call their underwear gaunch, Barber added).
1999
McCrae, who is Montreal-born but spent his formative years in New York City, is unequivocal about who's sporting the best undies, gotch, bobettes, panties and briefs: francophones, no question. "The French just generally are better-dressed than anglophones," he says.
1999
Obviously, Athans (who, I should mention, has so far not tried to make it to the top of the world in anything less than an expedition-weight down suit) isn't talking about your average pair of polyester gitch. This is the uber-underwear of the future. Underwear as outerwear. Athans works with leading outdoor equipment manufacturer The North Face, helping to design clothing systems that may one day help climbers push the boundaries of what's possible at high altitude.
2001
"The highlight was doing a show for Gianfranco Ferre. It was a total fluke because I didn't get the audition. The night before, I went out with friends and got drunk and shaved my head. I went to the audition and the stylist grabbed me and stripped me down to my ginch and started sewing these thick wool sweaters on to me. They gave me some pants and boots and biker's gloves. There was a picture of me in the paper in Milan calling me Blade Runner. It was totally great."
2001
But today, gotchies -- or gaunch, as they are often called here in the West -- for guys is a lot more fun than the old standard Y- fronts.
2003
Though it's not a hip hop phrase, this explains why a few years ago, to my extreme pleasure, the word "gaunch" was added to the Canadian Oxford. Alas, "ginch," "gaunchy" and "mooseknuckle" still hang in reference book limbo, waiting in the wings for their time to shine like a mad batch of bling-bling.
2004
A popular slang term for underwear also appears to be Ukrainian in origin (gauchi), says [Katherine Barber], though the Alberta version is different from the Saskatchewan one.
"In Saskatchewan, it's gauch, gitch or gotch, but in Alberta it's gaunch, ginch and gonch. On the Alberta side of Lloydminster, people suddenly get an 'n' in their underwear, and we have no idea why."
2006
Wind ginch. In cross-country skiing we wear these particularly thin tights, so we have this underwear designed with a wind tunnel to protect our, uh, assets and, let's say, our future investments. I travel with about five pairs.
2007
Panties, ginch, undies, skivvies, knickers. There are many names for women's undergarments. And fortunately for today's choosy woman, there are almost as many options to cover her nether regions.
2012
I am ashamed but I don't know how to turn on the washer or dryer. I frequently vacuum, dust and shine-up the hardwood.
Can I chalk-up some points for being a good boy and scooping up loose socks and gotchies from the floor and dropping them into the hamper?
2015
I get back from my brisk power walk and strip down to the bare necessities, or should I say the wee essentials in our chambre d'amour.
I then pitter-patter down the hall while discarding my frisky gotchies and suddenly let out a girlie shriek in a voice higher than a high-talker with his ju-jubes caught in a vice.
2in compounds such as gotchie pull — informal
a prank where the perpetrator pulls up on the back of the victim's underwear.
Type: 1. Origin — See etymology under meaning 1. The standard variant of gotchie pull is "wedgie" (Chambers 2012), which is a North American term.
Quotations
1979
We were constantly running around, hitting everyone and giving each other "gonch" pulls. If we were ever caught we'd be "snagged" or so "verged" (that's caught and embarrassed for those who don't know). I don't think there was one good kid in our whole grade eight class.
1991
Then you would be guilty of Liking a Girl, a horrible transgression of The Little Boy's Code of Professional Conduct. The penalty for liking a girl was a Gonch Pull (the Gonch pull, by the way, was a fiendish torture method invented by the VietCong, but abandoned when they agreed it was too horrible. So they taught little boys how to do it to their friends).
1993
I invented the Icicle Gonch Pull. We practiced it to perfection on Ritchie Van Horlick, the Designated Fat Kid Whose Underwear Always Peeked Out Above His Pants.
2006
The indecent assault charges relate to two women who said they protested his sexual advances and two incidents where Ellison is alleged to have ripped underpants off his students -- once during nude swimming off his boat and the other during a rowdy game of "gaunch-pull" in the classroom.
References
- Chambers (1994-2004)
- Chambers (2012)
- COD-2
Images
Chart 1: Internet Domain Search, 18 Jul. 2012
