Jerry-built Definition

[Alacoque Whitchurch]

Imaginewith us for a minute that you are putting together one of those tall, many-tiered, carpeted structures for a cat. You are, however, working with subpar tools and several improvised components. You succeed in getting the thing into something like its intended form only to be suddenly beset with a linguistic conundrum: is the structure jury-rigged or jerry-built or jerry-rigged?

That fact is also our clue that jury-rig has nothing to do with the juries of the courtroom. Jury-rig comes from the adjective jury, meaning "improvised for temporary use especially in an emergency," or "makeshift." It's a 15th century term that comes from the Middle English jory, as known (back then, anyway) in the phrase "jory sail," meaning "improvised sail."

The rig in jury-rigged likewise has nothing to do with the rig that has to do with manipulating or controlling something, like a game or election, to get a desired result. That rig is from a 17th century noun meaning "swindle." The rig in jury-rigged is a 15th century sailing term meaning "to fit out with rigging," with rigging being the lines and chains used in operating a sailing vessel. In the 18th century, if it was jury-rigged it was a boat:

Jury-rigged was, of our three words, the only option for describing our questionably constructed many-tiered carpeted cat structure for quite a while. But in the mid-19th century another word came along: jerry-built means "built cheaply and unsubstantially" as well as "carelessly or hastily put together." The origin of this word is unknown, though there is plenty of speculation that it's from some poor slob named Jerry, which is a nickname for Jeremy or Jeremiah. While one named Jerry may reasonably disdain the word, jerry-built is not considered to be a slur. Jerry was used in British English around the time of the First World War as a disparaging word for a German person, but jerry-built predates that use:

The definitive proof is absent, but etymologists believe that the similarity between something being jury-rigged and something being jerry-built paved the way for our third word. The jury of jury-rigged isn't transparent to the modern English speaker, but the rigged makes sense: after its "to fit out with rigging" meaning, rig developed other senses, including "to equip," "to construct," and "to put in condition or position for use." And so it was that in the late 19th century, the word jerry-rigged sidled up to the language and asked to come inside, offering a meaning of "organized or constructed in a crude or improvised manner":

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.

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.

It's not all that difficult to mix up common sayings in the English language, which is rife with sound-alike phrases and confusing idioms. Is it "for all intents and purposes" or "for all intensive purposes"? Is it a "doggy dog world" or a "dog-eat-dog" world? (In the first case, the former is correct; in the second, it's the latter.)

The term "jury-rigged" first caught on in the 1700s, where it was recorded in newspaper articles as a strictly nautical term. At that time, the word "jury" meant "improvised for temporary use, especially in an emergency" or "makeshift." The meaning and usage of "jury" was taken from the 1400s, when in the Middle English the word "jory" meant "improvised" and was used exclusively in reference to sailing. At the time, a "jory sail" was synonymous with an "improvised sail" that had been repaired well enough to catch the wind.

The "rigged" in "jury-rigged" is a term that also originated in the 1400s and which referred to the "rigging" of a boat. In this context, a rigging represented the ropes and chains used aboard a ship that worked the sail and supported the masts.

How does "jury-rigged" differ from "jerry-rigged? It isn't well understood how the term "jerry-rigged" originated, but it is believed to be a variation of "jury-rigged" that refers to something that is "jerry-built" or "cheaply or poorly built," which is an important distinction in meaning.

While "jury-rigged" refers to something that has been temporarily (and often cleverly) repaired, "jerry-rigged" refers to something that wasn't well-constructed in the first place. "Jerry-rigged," therefore, seems to be a mashup between "jury-rigged" and "jerry-built" and reference tomes ranging from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary accept its usage as an official word of the English language.

Don't get either "jury-rigged" or "jerry-rigged" confused with a "jimmy rig," though. While a jury-rig and a jerry-rig both refer to repairs that aid an object's function, something that is "jimmy-rigged" with a temporary fix isn't likely to work at all.

>>Not sure, but I think "gerry-rigged" may have been an

>>alternative for people who didn't want to use the N term.

>>

>Actually, I think it is older. I grew up with jury-rigged as a term with

>the same meaning. I believe both of these terms are variation on

>jerry-rigged. I'm pretty sure it comes from the British slang term for

>Germans. Other way around ... jerry-rigged was the derogatory from jury-rigged,

which didn't start out as derogatory, merely descriptive.

From the OED, 1933 version:

JURY-MAST ... a temporary mast put up to replace one broken or carried

away (in a storm) dates from 1666

JURY-XXXX ... used in combination with other words to indicate a temporary

or makeshift piece of equipment.

A ship that was jury-rigged would be one that was using temporary rigging

and sail sets instead of the full shipyard-issue set, for whatever reason.

It was often used when ships were being moved short distances in fair

weather - there is a reference to specifiying that the ships be jury-rigged

for delivery.>Also, something with is jerry-built is built cheaply and unsubstantially.

>My dictionary says the origin is unknown. So maybe jerry-rigging came from

>the same unknown source.Jerry-built dates from 1869, as earliest written use. Origin unknown, but

it predates several wars with Germany. May have come from the name of a

builder, whose name "Jerry" was close enough to "jury" to make the switch

possible.>I'm cross-posting this to alt.usage.english. I'll bet you didn't think

>anyone could do that but Dan Harper!

CallieCal...@writepage.com The Write Page for genre fiction:

All the books that are fun to read.

Germans. My assumption is that the term came from wartime, as something of

a synonym for "booby trap"; you wouldn't want to use a piece of machinery

that had been rigged by the Jerries. The definition has changed with

usage. The meaning I've always understood for all versions is something

that has been cobbled together in such a way as to work, but with no

guaranteed reliance -- stuck together with bailing wire and duct tape. I

don't consider either term particularly complementary, though us Engineers

tend to be impressed with MacGuyver-style ingenuity. That it was intended

to be a put-down is demonstrated by the connection to an ethnic slur! I

assume the jury-rig variation came from the similarity in sound, and the

fact that juries can, and sometimes are, rigged (or fixed).On a side-line, jerry cans are the military style gas cans. The term came

from the gas cans used by the Germans which were much superior to the ones

used by the British military early in WWII. The German cans became prized

possessions. I have heard that captured cans were sent back to England

with orders to "make cans like these". Cans came back which were identical

down to the German Eagles... I have no documentation for the story, or

promises on the accuracy of the above.

> - or the phrase developed by some misunderstanding or mishearing.

> If it is a combination of "jerry-built" and "jury-rigged" then again

> there is some misunderstanding, because the phrases carry contradictory

> implications. "Jury-rigged" means "done as well as possible with the

> available materials after the purpose-built equipment has been lost or

> destroyed". "Jerry-built" means "deliberately built as cheaply as possible,

> regardless of quality and durability".

The rig of a sailing boat is - roughly - its sail configuration. After a

major mishap such as the mast breaking, the crew will try to concoct a

jury rig, in which any available spar is somehow made to stand up as a mast,

so that at least a scrap of sail can be set to allow the boat to sail to

where proper repairs can be effected.

According to the Point-of-Purchase Advertising Institute of Englewood, N.J., the typical supermarket shopper is a woman who does not redeem coupons. She also ignores in-store circulars, misses newspaper ads and does not make a shopping list.

Source: "Business Reports." American Demographics, May 1988.

Some economists are complaining that the U.S. Commerce Department's statistics don't reflect what's really going on. For instance, the department's monthly series on contracts and orders for plants and equipment is a key part of the leading indicator index, but it's limited to orders received by plants within the U.S. This overlooks imports of capital goods, which have just about tripled over the last five years. Failing to take that into account may have caused forecasters to underestimate the strength of the economy.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 1988.

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