Was this some kind of deal where we get pwned just by reading the whole post?
I feel tricked.
There's also the slightly less offensive, "ghetto rigged."
Or the equally offensive "afro rigged."
I was under the impression that jerry-rigged was an anti-German expression dating back to one of them there WWs.
I must really be dense today. I've only heard of "jury rig" and assumed it was common knowledge. Where did "Jerry rigged" come from, WWII?
That's addressed at the bottom of the linked page, apo.
Along similar lines, and perhaps even less useful as knowledge, note the relations between Heath Robinson and Rube Goldberg contraptions.
I was under the impression that jerry-rigged was an anti-German expression dating back to one of them there WWs.
I think that I shall never see
A volker etymology.
Where they say, basically, they have no clue about where it comes from. Damned etymologists.
Ah, but they know where it does not come from. And isn't that really all you need to know to play the grammar pest?
Jury-rigged is correct -- it's a sailing term, or at least I've seen it primarily in that context, meaning improvised. 'Jerry-built' is a term meaning shoddily built, I think from WW II England, with Jerries=Germans. The 'Jerry' from the latter term has drifted into the earlier term because of the similarity in sound and meaning, but ''jerry-built is a malapropism, rather than a different term in its own right.
Whoops -- somehow I missed the whole post, which says all of those things.
Except that apparently "jerry" isn't about the Germans.
a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=jerry-built">This page traces "jerry" back to "jury." Seems like they're all just guessing.
Methinks "jerry-built" is by now an equally acceptable alternative rather than a malapropism. Anyone who wants to argue about the hyphen, step outside.
Just remember, Tia, the alligators have to be eating the quotes on both sides.
Fuck to oboe, I meant that "jerry-rigged" is now equally acceptable. And it's all LizardBreath's fault. Truly, white women are responsible for the majority of wickedness that goes on across the globe.
This is all very confusing. Perhaps we should just stick with nigger-rigged since I can pinpoint exactly where that originates.
So do the quotes have to shave?
If they're being eaten on both sides, they have to shave and bleach.
Apropo of nothing, my father works for an international plating-supplies company, and when the German employees were over to tour various plants and share experiences, they used the term "nigger-rig". And were quite surprised at being asked not to do so.
William Safire had a column on this any number of years ago.
shoddily put together out of chintzy materials.
Even more amusing (to some twisted people) is that both shoddy and chintz began their word-lives as fabrics.
Leave it to w-lfs-n to have an encyclopedic knowledge of Safire columns.
My two cents' worth would be to note that I had a rather offensive college roommate who associated anything shoddy with Jews. So cheap tape was Jew tape. He came from the vast trailer park that is Greenwich, Connecticut, in case you wonder.
An acquaintence of mine at college would do the same sort of thing, when playing monopoly (it was a drinking game, we weren't that dorky...i hope) he would say he was "jewing up" every time someone landed on his hotel or something. He thought it was hilarious, we all cringed and took solace in the fact that no one really liked him.
Oddly enough, my erstwhile roommate was quite a popular guy on the campus of my Catholic college, once described by Newsweek as the "cradle of the Catholic Left." But that was the Reagan era, baby, and racism was back.
Catholics? Antisemitic?
I can't believe it; I thought they were all heterosexual. Didn't the Pope decide that?