GG, adjective and & noun

Forms:
Also G.G.
Origin:
Formerly the first two letters on the vehicle registration plate of all government vehicles; said to represent the initial letters of Government Garage.
A. adjective Of or pertaining to the government, especially the National Party government (1948–94).
1956 New Age 5 July 5The people of Albertynsville have been given a flat ultimatum: those working in Johannesburg must move to site and service plots; and the others must ‘go back to where they were born’...Official investigators — the ‘G.G. cars,’ the people call them, are daily at work in the camp.
c1970 C. Desmond Discarded People 222One man asked and was given permission to leave his belongings in his old house until he had re-built elsewhere. But G.G. workers arrived and bulldozed his house.
1971 Cape Times 3 July 10A level crossing in the Victoria Dock yesterday produced one of its periodical botsings between train and car, and the affair was a strictly inter-departmental one...A shunting train had collected a GG car and chewed the after end slightly.
1972 Sunday Times 5 Nov. 16If there is nothing wrong in Ministers using these Government cars on private business, why was somebody or other apparently ashamed to see Ministers in GG cars?
1974 J. McClure Gooseberry Fool (1976) 78‘GG spy!’ she hissed...Zondi..poked her hard in the voicebox with one finger...He grabbed her arms and dragged her into her tent...‘You say GG one more time and I’ll kill you, my sister.’
1983 Sunday Times 12 June 14The GG trucks, the rows of latrines, the crude temporary huts..are central features of South Africa under apartheid.
1985 Platzky & Walker Surplus People p.xxxThe people had been told to leave the farm before the end of the year, but one month before the deadline they were taken by surprise and moved by GG trucks.
1985 Platzky & Walker Surplus People 385The government is ‘motivating people to move voluntarily’. But if, as the Bakwena of Mogopa were told, they refuse to move voluntarily, they will be moved by GG trucks.
1989 J. Hobbs Thoughts in Makeshift Mortuary 175I remember..mobs of shouting men with sticks marching up Gold Street, and the GG cars that went up and down.
B. noun , plural usually unchanged, occasionally GGs. Usually pl. : Government officials; the government.
1969 Rand Daily Mail in C. Desmond Discarded People (c1970) 250‘We were told to build, but only if we bought bricks from them.’ ‘Them’ is of course ‘GG,’ the Government, the authorities, or their nominees.
c1970 C. Desmond Discarded People 18In every settlement I visited, every person I spoke to..said that they had not wanted to move. But ‘We had no choice.’ ‘There was nothing we could do.’ They were told by the ‘G.G.’ (Government officials) that they had to move.
1981 Sunday Times 12 July 20People did not want to move, ‘but when the “GG” (as government officials are referred to) say you must move, then you must move.’
1984 Frontline Mar. 30When we asked how and why they had come, the answers were all the same. ‘The GGs made us come.’ Government vehicles long ago changed their GG — Government Garage — registration to ‘R’, which is usually assumed to stand for ‘Regering’ but officially is for Republiek/Republic. But the old name is dying hard. ‘GG’ is still the all-purpose term of reference to any branch of officialdom.
1989 J. Lelyveld in Reader’s Digest Illust. Hist. of S. Afr. 432GG is as predictable as a natural calamity. GG scoops you up when you least expect it and drops you somewhere you have never seen, leaving it to you to patch together the torn and ragged pattern of a life.
Of or pertaining to the government, especially the National Party government (1948–94).
Usually pl. :Government officials; the government.
Entry Navigation

Visualise Quotations

Quotation summary

Senses

19561989

Browse Related Words

By Category

Transport
Government and Administration

By Usage

acronyms
geyser, nounn.ghaap, nounn.
Copyright © 2025 Dictionary Unit for South African English