Hy Het Sy Gat Gesien - He Came Short
The Afrikaans word ‘gat’ has more than one meaning. The first refers to a hole in the ground or in any other object while the second meaning is more crude. It refers to a person’s or animal’s backside; more specifically his a**hole.The expression ‘Hy het sy gat gesien’ can thus be translated to English in more than one way:
A) He saw his hole
B) He saw his grave (as a grave is a hole in the ground)
C) He saw his a**.
The third form is the popular form for at least the last 50 years since somebody added ‘without a mirror’, and mostly used in the future tense. Effectively saying you will see your backside without at mirror; meaning that you will come short or that you will not get it right.
But this is completely out of line with the original saying which refers to a hole in the ground; more specifically an open grave.
Towards the end of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) many Boers surrendered and were called ‘hensoppers’ meaning ‘hands uppers’ or traitors. The ‘hensoppers’ were often executed by the passing Boer commandos.
Such a traitor was condemned to death by court-martial. They were forced to dig their own graves and then, while facing the grave, shot from behind to drop into the hole.
If somebody would later ask: “What happened to so and so?” the answer would have been “Hy het sy gat gesien”, meaning that he saw his grave (while being shot as a traitor).
So, in the about 30 to 60 years since the war, this expression had evolved into something with a completely different meaning. Languages are truly alive and this is especially true In the case of a young language like Afrikaans which was only recognized as a language about a hundred years ago or so.
But then it is also a very versatile expression with other meanings like for an instance:
Die bottel het sy gat gesien. Meaning
The bottle - Die Bottel - is empty.
or
Die suiker het sy gat gesien.
The sugar - Die Suiker - is finished.
It is estimated that about 25 million people worldwide now can fully understand and speak Afrikaans.