Bushta in the bean aisle - Ian McMillan

Did one person start calling it a door, and then another and the idea of a door being a door started to make sense?

So far, so good. Part of me wishes that I was the person who first came up with the word “door” to mean the thing I’d just come through. I’d be famous. Or, more likely, forgotten.

I’ve got one thing to add to that, though, and the thing is a word and the word is bushta! Or even, because it’s often shouted or at least spoken with emphasis, BUSHTA! Now, if you look Bushta up, you’ll find that it’s a first or second name of Arabic origin, and if you alter the spelling a little to booshta, you’ll find that it’s an Irish word meaning an idiot.

On the map there’s a Loch of Bushta in the north of Scotland, not far from Thurso, but if you live in South Yorkshire, then I’m convinced that word has a very different and very specific meaning which has nothing to do with a loch.

Let me explain: I was on the X19 bus the other day going from Darfield to Barnsley and two older men on the seats in front were describing an altercation they’d once seen in a pub car park and one of the men said: “Well the first bloke gave him a reyt crack, bushta! And he went darn like a tree.”

They laughed and then, just for the joy of it, the other man said “bushta!” and mimicked giving somebody a reyt crack.

And the funny thing was, I knew what they meant; bushta is a very descriptive word for an explosion of, often comedic, violence. It’s the kind of word you might see in a cartoon, I guess.

Then, as often happens, because I’d heard the word once I started to hear it a lot. Somebody said it in a shop about a big pile of tins of beans that had once collapsed to the floor, and someone else said it about a goal that their team had scored: it had hit the goalkeeper so hard that, bushta! He fell back into the net and dropped the ball.

Now, I have to admit I’ve never heard bushta anywhere else but in my particular corner of South Yorkshire. I’ve heard it around Barnsley and a little bit in the Doncaster area but nowhere else.

So I wonder if the word is on its way or on its way up? Years ago, did a lot of people all over the place say bushta and, like a rare bird it’s gradually started to dwindle?

Or, and perhaps more excitingly, it’s just at the start of its linguistic journey like door once was and soon everybody will be saying it.

Well, I hope so. Bushta!