gap it
English
editEtymology
editIn allusion to the gap that separated Salisbury (Harare) from the border crossing point with South Africa at Beitbridge.
Verb
edit- (slang, historical) Of a white inhabitant of Rhodesia: to emigrate from the country during its transition to independence.
- Synonym: take the gap
- 2015, Hannes Wessels, A Handful of Hard Men: The SAS and the Battle for Rhodesia, page 265:
- […] but that he would out-think and out-manoeuvre whatever they could throw at us and if we had to gap it because the odds were insurmountable, who better to be with than Darrell.
- 2019, David Kenrick, Decolonisation, Identity and Nation in Rhodesia, 1964-1979, page 2:
- By 1979, thousands had 'gapped it', or taken the 'chicken run', as emigration was derisively known […]