Giddy up go

Posted by Smokey Stover on December 09, 2005

In Reply to: Giddy up go posted by David FG on December 09, 2005

: : "giddy up go" what is the origin and meaning of this phrase?

:
: It was traditionally said to a horse to urge it to move: no idea why.

: DFG

This expression and similar expressions were explored on this site in the past. My search s.v. "giddy up" and "giddyup" and "giddyap" did not reveal anything useful. However, it was easily concluded that "giddyup" meant either "get up" or perhaps originally, "get ye up." Get up and go is not a difficult phrase to decipher. Occasional farmers would also say "gee up" (in which the g is hard; farmers also say, or used to say, "gee" [soft g] to make a team go to the right). There is also a clicking sound made by sucking the tongue off the palate, something like what we are told is spelled "tsk tsk," but emitted through the side of the mouth, which is also used to get a team to move forward, or move forward faster. Some farmers used to make the "tsk tsk" sound to move the team. Actually one can use these commands on a single horse (pulling, not being ridden), but to require a single horse to do the work of two is somewhat cruel.