"Blighty" is a British English slang term for Great Britain, or often specifically England. [1] [2] [3] Though it was used throughout the 1800s in the Indian subcontinent to mean an English or British visitor, it was first used during the Boer War in the specific meaning of homeland for the English or British, [4] [1] and it was not until World War I that use of the term became widespread. [4]
The word derives from the Urdu word Viletī, (older sources mention a regional Hindustani language but the use of b replacing v is found in Bengali) meaning 'foreign', [4] which more specifically came to mean 'European', and 'British; English' during the time of the British Raj. [5] The Bengali word is a loan of Indian Persian vilāyatī (ولایاتی), from vilāyat (ولایت) meaning 'Iran' and later 'Europe' or 'Britain', [6] ultimately from Arabic wilāyah ولاية meaning 'state, province'.
The term subsequently gained an ironic connotation in its closeness to the English word “blight” meaning epidemic. It’s an example of typical post imperial British self effacement.
Blighty is commonly used as a term of endearment by the expatriate British community or those on holiday to refer to home. In Hobson-Jobson , an 1886 historical dictionary of Anglo-Indian words, Henry Yule and Arthur Coke Burnell explained that the word came to be used in British India for several things the British had brought into the country, such as the tomato and soda water.
During the First World War, "Dear Old Blighty" was a common sentimental reference, suggesting a longing for home by soldiers in the trenches. The term was particularly used by World War I poets such as Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. During that war, a "Blighty wound" – a wound serious enough to require recuperation away from the trenches, but not serious enough to kill or maim the victim – was hoped for by many, and sometimes self-inflicted. [7]
An early example of the usage of a derivative of the Arabic wilāyah being used to refer to Britain is after diplomat I'tisam-ud-Din returned from Britain back to the Mughal Empire. The locals nicknamed him as 'Bilayet Munshi', due to him being the first South Asian (c. 1765) to travel to what was known as the Bilayet. [8]
Blighty, a humorous weekly magazine, was issued free to British troops during the First World War. It contained short stories, poems, cartoons, paintings and drawings, with contributions from men on active service. It was distributed by the War Office, the Admiralty and the Red Cross, and subsidised through donations and sales to the general public. [9] The magazine was revived in 1939 and continued until 1958. [10]
In his First World War autobiography Good-Bye to All That (1929), the writer Robert Graves attributes the term "Blitey" to the Hindustani word for "home". [11] He writes: "The men are pessimistic but cheerful. They all talk about getting a 'cushy' one to send them back to 'Blitey'."
The music hall artiste Vesta Tilley had a hit in 1916 with the song "I'm Glad I've Got a Bit of a Blighty One" (1916), in which she played a soldier delighted to have been wounded and in hospital. "When I think about my dugout," she sang, "where I dare not stick my mug out... I'm glad I've got a bit of a blighty one". Another music hall hit was "Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty" (1917). [12] The song is sung by Cicely Courtneidge in the 1962 film The L-Shaped Room . [13] The term was also referenced in the song "All American Alien Boy" by Ian Hunter ("I'm just a whitey from Blighty"), from the 1976 album of the same name. [14] Folksinger Ian Robb's album Rose and Crown features a topical parody of the traditional song "Maggie May", about the Falklands War. The song contains the lines: "When I get back to Blighty, I'll give thanks to The Almighty / Whether Maggie's little war is lost or won".
UKTV operated a digital television channel called Blighty that opened in February 2009 and closed on 5 July 2013. The subscription channel, which concentrated on British-made programming, was replaced by a Freeview channel called Drama. [15]
Cunt is a vulgar word for the vulva or vagina. It is used in a variety of ways, including as a term of disparagement. "Cunt" is often used as a disparaging and obscene term for a woman in the United States, an unpleasant or objectionable man or woman in the United Kingdom and Ireland, or a contemptible man in Australia and New Zealand. In Australia and New Zealand, it can also be a neutral or positive term when used with a positive qualifier. The term has various derivative senses, including adjective and verb uses.
Bitch is a pejorative slang word for a person, usually a woman. When applied to a woman or girl, it means someone who is belligerent, unreasonable, malicious, controlling, aggressive, or dominant. When applied to a man or boy, bitch reverses its meaning and is a derogatory term for being subordinate, weak, or cowardly.
An oblast is a type of administrative division in Bulgaria and several post-Soviet states, including Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Historically, it was used in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. The term oblast is often translated in English as region or province. In some countries, oblasts are also known by cognates of the Russian term.
Kraut is a German word recorded in English from 1918 onwards as an ethnic slur for a German, particularly a German soldier during World War I and World War II. Its earlier meaning in English was as a synonym for sauerkraut, a traditional Central and Eastern European food.
Desi is a loose term used to describe the Northern Indic people, cultures, and products of the Indian subcontinent and their diaspora, derived from Sanskrit देश (deśá), meaning "land, country". Desi traces its origin to the Northern Indic people of the South Asian republics of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and may also sometimes include people from Sri Lanka, Nepal, the Maldives and Bhutan.
This glossary of names for the British include nicknames and terms, including affectionate ones, neutral ones, and derogatory ones to describe British people, and more specifically English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish people. Many of these terms may vary between offensive, derogatory, neutral and affectionate depending on a complex combination of tone, facial expression, context, usage, speaker and shared past history.
Hindūstān is the Persian-language name for India, broadly referring to the Indian subcontinent. Also shortly known as Hind, it is the Iranic cognate of the Indic word Sindh, and originally referred to the tract of land on the left bank of the lower Indus River. Later, the term referred to the Indo-Gangetic plain, and became the classical name of the region in the Hindustani language, and it finally referred to the entire subcontinent since the early modern period. Since the Partition of India in 1947, Hindustan continues to be used to the present day as a historic name for the Republic of India.
Wanker is slang for "one who wanks (masturbates)", but is most often used as a general insult. It is a pejorative term of English origin common in Britain and other parts of the English-speaking world, including Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. It is synonymous with the insult tosser.
Bugger or buggar can at times be considered as a mild swear word. In the United Kingdom the term has been used commonly to imply dissatisfaction, refer to someone or something whose behaviour is in some way inconvenient or perhaps as an expression of surprise. In the United States, particularly in the Midwest and South, it is an inoffensive slang term meaning "small animal".
A wilayah is an administrative division, usually translated as "state", "province" or occasionally as "governorate". The word comes from the Arabic root "w-l-y", "to govern": a wāli—"governor"—governs a wālāya, "that which is governed". Under the Caliphate, the term referred to any constituent near-sovereign state.
The terminology of the British Isles refers to the words and phrases that are used to describe the geographical and political areas of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland and the smaller islands which surround them. The terms are often a source of confusion, partly owing to the similarity between some of the actual words used but also because they are often used loosely. Many of the words carry geographical and political connotations which are affected by the history of the islands.
Matilda Alice Powles, Lady de Frece was an English music hall performer. She adopted the stage name Vesta Tilley and became one of the best-known male impersonators of her era. Her career lasted from 1869 until 1920. Starting in provincial theatres with her father as manager, she performed her first season in London in 1874. She typically performed as a dandy or fop, also playing other roles. She found additional success as a principal boy in pantomime.
Hindustani, also known as Hindi-Urdu, is the vernacular form of two standardized registers used as official languages in India and Pakistan, namely Hindi and Urdu. It comprises several closely related dialects in the northern, central and northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent but is mainly based on Khariboli of the Delhi region. As an Indo-Aryan language, Hindustani has a core base that traces back to Sanskrit but as a widely-spoken lingua franca, it has a large lexicon of loanwords, acquired through centuries of foreign rule and ethnic diversity.
"Million-dollar wound" or "Blighty wound" is military slang for a type of wound received in combat which is serious enough to get the soldier sent away from the fighting, but neither fatal nor permanently crippling.
"Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty" is a music hall song written by Arthur J. Mills, Fred Godfrey and Bennett Scott in 1916. It was popular during the First World War, and tells a story of three fictional soldiers on the Western Front suffering from homesickness and their longing to return to "Blighty" - a slang term for Britain.
Git is a term of insult denoting an unpleasant, silly, incompetent, annoying, senile, elderly or childish person. As a mild oath it is roughly on a par with prat and marginally less pejorative than berk. Typically a good-natured admonition with a strong implication of familiarity, git is more severe than twit or idiot but less severe than wanker, arsehole or twat when offence is intended.
The Islamic State – Caucasus Province is a branch of the militant Islamist group Islamic State (IS), that is active in the North Caucasus region of Russia. IS announced the group's formation on 23 June 2015 and appointed Rustam Asildarov as its leader. Although it was defeated militarily as an organized force by 2017, some lone wolves acted on behalf of the Caucasus Province for several years afterwards.
After the introduction of conscription in 1916, the distinction between soldiers and civilians became less clear, and vocabulary passed readily from one group to the other. This is the case with ... Blighty. The Urdu words vilayat ("inhabited country", specifically Europe or Britain) and vilayati ("foreign", or "British, English, European") were borrowed by the British in the 19th Century.... But it was the regional variant bilayati - rendered as Blighty in English and meaning "Britain, England, home" - which really took off in Britain. Although it was first used during the Boer war, it was not until WW1 that Blighty spread widely and developed new meanings.