Why is it called jerry rigging

Thank you very much Ben Zimmer. Here are two more perhaps regional words. I have only experienced them in an area surrounding northern Warren, Barren and Edmonson counties in south central Kentucky. Mommick and slonker sl-aw-ng-ker meaning to loaf, hang around without purpose, or do tasks of little consequence. Usually used together. Wha-dju-do this weekend? Aw, just mommicked and slonkered around the place. Is the job done yet? Well get at it, you can mommick and slonker on your own time. Do you have a comment?

Share it with the Visual Thesaurus community. Your comments:. Sign in to post a comment! We're sorry, you must be a subscriber to comment. Click here to subscribe today. Post a comment Sign up for email. Editor's Picks: Eponyms in the Making?

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Mailbag Friday investigates. October 14, - 2 Comments. Vocabulary: The Post-Dictionary World? I learned this one afternoon when something went wrong with the jerry rigged derrick we were using. While some will assert that jerry-rigged is an inferior sort of word to be avoided, it is in fact fully established and has been busy in the language for more than a century, describing any number of things organized or constructed in a crude or improvised way.

Jury-rigged and jerry-built are somewhat older and not generally criticized, and have the added benefit of having corresponding verb forms. Jury-rigged is the best choice when the makeshift nature of the effort is to be emphasized rather than a shoddiness that results; the one who jury-rigs is merely doing what they can with the materials available.

Jerry-built is most often applied when something has been made quickly and cheaply; the one who jerry-builds something builds it badly. Whatever your imagined many-tiered carpeted cat structure looks like, of course, the important thing is not which word you choose to describe it but how happy the box it came in is making your cat. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free! Log in Sign Up. Usage Notes 'Jerry-built' vs. More Words At Play.

Merriam-Webster's Words of the Week - Oct. Time Traveler. Love words? Need even more definitions? The word rig is also a nautical term. The word can also be used as a verb. Jerry-built is an adjective. Jury-rigs can be clever, innovative, and impressive. The word jerry-rigged may be a blend of jury-rigged and jerry-built , or it may be a variant pronunciation or spelling of jury-rigged. Jerry and jury do sound very close. Jerry-rigged is found by the late 19th-century. Its definition is the same as jury-rigged.

This disparaging term is real, a pun on the name Jerry and the pronunciation of the first part of German.