By Betty Kirkpatrick
Edinburgh is famous for its castle, its festival and now the outrageous spiralling costs of its embryo tram system. But not everyone would agree, it seems, that these costs are outrageous. The leader of City of Edinburgh Council, Jenny Dawe, has stated that the rising costs are "a small glitch".
Cllr Dawe must regard these costs as very small beer indeed, because glitch itself usually has the word small, minor, brief, etc included in its definition – for example, a minor problem or fault that stops something working successfully. A small glitch would be quite insignificant or trivial, hardly worth mentioning. This is hardly the case with the costs of the as yet non-existent Edinburgh tram system.
The word glitch has its origins in another form of transport: spacecraft. It dates from the 1960s and was part of the jargon of those involved in then expanding world of aerospace. Despite the fact that glitch is relatively recent in terms of language, its derivation is uncertain. As is often the case, several suggestions have been put forward.
Some claim that that it is based on a Yiddish word glitsch, a slip or lapse, derived from the German verb glitschen meaning to slip. Others think that it may simply have been inspired by the word hitch. Certainly the words are closely connected in meaning, both suggesting that the problem concerned is a temporary one and that things will soon be up and running again – unlike the trams.
Another language commentator, while conceding that there is a hitch connection, has refined this. He has proposed that there is a gremlin at work also, and that glitch is a blend of gremlin and hitch. At times, etymologists – both amateur and professional – let their imaginations run wild.
Glitch was originally used in a technical context, particularly to describe a sudden change in voltage in an electric current. It is often now used in the context of computing, but has spread its wings and is now commonly used in general English.
However, it is certainly not the mot juste for the Edinburgh trams fiasco. Cllr Dawe should choose her words more carefully.
Betty Kirkpatrick is the former editor of several classic reference books, including Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary and Roget’s Thesaurus. She is also the author of several smaller language reference books, including The Usual Suspects and Other Clichés published by Bloomsbury, and a series of Scots titles, including Scottish Words and Phrases, Scottish Quotations, and Great Scots, published by Crombie Jardine.
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