Text 9013, 80 rader
Skriven 2006-09-24 12:55:00 av Robert E Starr JR (9510.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Can You BELIEVE This?
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<45143019$1@news.cadence.com><4nj5efFaoa13U1@individual.net><Xns9846E3FD3DBC9methuselahaltgeekorg@216.196.97.131><kurtul

On 23 Sep 2006 17:49:09 -0700, "Joseph DeMartino"
<jdemarti@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>In matters such as this, I usually turn to the always-helpful Evan
>Morris, The Word Detective.  (www.word-detective.com)
>
>Caught in the rigging.
>
>Dear Word Detective: I'm curious about the word "jerryrig," as in to
>make do with materials on hand. I recently saw it spelled "juryrig,"
>but the context seemed to be the same. Is the correct spelling "jerry"
>or "jury" and what is the origin of the word? What, if anything, does
>it have to do with a rigged jury? -- Jill Fitzpatrick, via the
>Internet.
>
>Not much, if anything. Then again, some of the juries running around
>out there these days could probably do with a little jury-rigging,
>perhaps a little money under the table for paying attention to the
>simple facts of the case. Between turning certain people loose in the
>face of mountains of evidence and fining other folks millions of
>dollars for lying on their job applications, juries are rather rapidly
>reaching a level of credibility formerly attained only by UFOlogists
>and mail-order psychics.
>
>In any case, the "jury-rig" (it is usually hyphenated) you're asking
>about has nothing whatever to do with juries in the judicial sense.
>"Jury" was originally a naval term for any makeshift contrivance
>substituting for the real thing in an emergency, most commonly found in
>the term "jury-mast," a temporary mast constructed in place of one that
>had been broken. There's some debate about where the word "jury" in
>this sense came from, with the leading (but unverified) theory being
>that it was short for "injury."
>
>To say that something is "jerryrigged" is to mix idioms a bit, because
>the proper term is "jerrybuilt." A "jerrybuilder," a term dating to
>19th-century England, was originally a house builder who constructed
>flimsy homes from inferior materials. The "jerry" in the term may have
>been a real person known for the practice, or may be a mangled form of
>"jury," as in "jury-rigged." I tend to think that "jerrybuilt" arose
>separately from "jury-rig" simply because their senses are slightly
>different. Something that is "jury-rigged" is concocted on the spur of
>the moment to meet an emergency, but something "jerrybuilt" is
>deliberately constructed of inferior materials to turn a quick buck.
>
>Copyright =A9 1997 by Evan Morris.
>http://www.word-detective.com/back-g2.html#juryrig
>
>Nothing about Germans.  Even if there *were*, there is nothing
>derogatory about "Jerry" as a nickname for members of the German Army,
>anymore than "Fritz" in the same context or "Tommy" for a British
>soldier, "Joe" or "G.I. Joe" for an American or "Ivan" for a Russian.
>If anything using an English diminuitive as a nickname for the enemy
>suggests respect verging on affection - a fairly accurate description
>of the feeling of a lot of British soldiers and officers.  (I suspect
>Montogmery would have much rather sat down to dinner with Rommel than
>with Patton. <g>)  "Hun" is an epithet.  "Jerry" is damned near a
>compliment. =20

Not to mention the less-than-flattering "Kraut . . . "

--=20
Josh

[Truly] I say to you, [...] angel [...] power will be able to see that [.=
..]
these to whom [...] holy generations [...]. After Jesus said this, he dep=
arted.

- The Gospel of Judas
                                               
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