The gaffer

Corner Bar
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#1

i am making a gaffer

#2

This is great! What is it about? Would you please explain this so that a non-native speaker like me, can understand… :blush:

  • the chief electrician in a motion-picture or television production unit.
  • an old man
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#3

One of my grandfathers used to be called Gaffer, which I assume is a contraction of Grandfather.

I doubt if @wheeler243 is making a grandfather. Maybe a clock?

#4

I’m going to start calling you Samwise. :crazy_face:

#5

Is that 'cos of my hairy feet?

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#6

Well, that, too.

#7

I’ve been able to do nothing with it during lockdown.

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#8

In the UK ‘the gaffer’ is colloquially used for ‘the boss’ or ‘the foreman’ [hence the meaning referring to media’s lead-electricians etc].
It’s also used for sports-coaches and any man overseeing gangs of laborers.
It’s also specifically used when referring to the senior glassblower in a craft-glass works.
It’s also sometimes used when referring to your own father in conversation, and by extension to any older man…

There’s also the separate ‘gaffer tape’ [aka duct-tape] which keeps things in order.

It originates from a corruption of the word ‘godfather’…

There’s a seemingly related word ‘gaff’, which by extension ‘gaffer’ could refer to someone using a ‘gaff’

A ‘gaff’ is a several things…
e.g. an metal-hook or spear on a pole used to land large fish or control a boat’s movement,
spurs used on fighting-cocks
and by extension spikes used on boots of linesmen to aid climbing up timber poles,
on a ship it’s a spar rising aft from a ship’s mast to support the head of a quadrilateral fore-and-aft sail,
it’s also used to mean a bad-mistake [e.g. I made a gaff(e)] - actually that word is spelled ‘gaffe’ - coming from the french for boat-hook] but most speakers won’t see a difference because it’s rarely written down anyway,
and more colloquially it’s used to mean ‘a home’ [e.g. I’m going back to my gaff]…

As a verb ‘to gaff’ means the act of using a gaff [hook], unless you are ‘making a gaff’ !

I’d be interested what the OP Aleks thinks his ‘gaffer’ is ???

e.g. did he mean ‘gauffer’ [or ‘goffer’] e.g. a pleated trim in material ?

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#9

Gaffer Hexam is a character in Charles Dickens’ great novel “Our Mutual Friend”. He fishes (with his gaff) dead bodies out of the Thames.

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#10

Ah, so not from grandfather after all. But we are no closer to knowing what the OP meant. Can’t be a clock. Maybe a Sicilian overlord? That would be testing, for certain.

#11

I guess that it is about a boat (with a gaff rig)

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#12

I like gaff rigged boats.

#13

For the “old man” version, I’ve been working on that myself.

I think I imagined the “gaffer” on the movie set was the guy holding the spar (like a gaff) with the mic or light over the action.

#14

Having a sister in the business, that’s the first association that came to my mind. I often think of duck tape as “gaffer’s tape.” I guess they’re not actually the same.

#15

Maybe but judging by certain aspects of the OP’s profile, I think it might not even be a serious post.

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#16

The spikes on my tree climbing spurrs are also called gaffs…

#17

All this faff over gaff…

#18

Yes, but we’re only having a laff…

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