Like for instance someone saying “Gopher John” when answering the phone. What does this mean?
I’m American and I’ve never heard this used.
But after thinking about it, gopher is a play on words that means “go for”. So saying gopher John is like saying “go for John” and can be a greeting.
“Go for X” was somewhat common, including in media. I think OP was mishearing that. There’s virtually no way to differentiate between “gopher” and a rushed, casual “go for” in speech.
I’ve only ever used this on a movie set radio. It’s real but limited in its uses.
It’s commonly used when you pick up a radio on a public band.
So if you have a jobsite where there are 100 radios, and someone needs to reach Ted, they’ll page the radio and say something like “Hey Ted, do you copy?” and Ted will respond with “Go for Ted,” which means yes, Ted is here and he’s listening, go ahead.
It was used in a small way some 40 years ago and never really caught on.
And, if you’ve reached Gopher Ted, you might respond with “Go for Gopher Ted”
Roger, Roger! What’s our vector, Victor?
Tower to radio clearance, over!
That’s Clarance Over!
What? Huh? Who?!?
ok thank you 😃
Ooooh thank you! I’d always wondered about this too.
Go for john
😃
You see in the US there are secret underground copies of all of our houses and gopher versions live there.
They are making it clear if you are speaking to John or Gopher John.
Sorry, for real I’ve never heard this before. Can you tell us where you heard it from? I’m really curious now.
Never heard it in real life, but have in multiple war/military movies.
I’ve never heard anyone say this. Maybe we need more context?
It’s our national rodent and I’ll thank you to take appropriate pride in her. Squeeker squeek.
I think they’re saying “go for John”. I saw it on a movie once and thought “huh” and my buddy Chris did it a couple times, but that’s about all my IRL experience with it.
Where did you possibly here that this is a thing that’s said?
It means that he works for Google and writes in Go.
ohh
I’m American and I don’t answer my phone.
On the rare occasion I do answer, I respond with “Whatcha want?”
Friends will reveal themselves real quick, scammers will also reveal themselves real quick…
Never heard this before.
Maybe this is related: when I did a huge remodeling construction job for a summer as an unskilled laborer, I basically ran around and helped different people on everything. That’s sometimes called being a “go-fer boy”. “Go for this, go for that” meaning I would always run around and fetch tools and do simple tasks.
Pretty sure it’s an old businessman thing. “Go for (my name)!” in a cock-sure tone is pretty much how I would expect any old business hot-shot asshole to answer the phone.
We would say, “go for (name)” at work over the handheld radio, never heard of anyone using this on the phone. Sometimes I’d get bored and say “go for Zap Rowsdower” or whatever
