WEBVTT - Is It 'Jerry-Rigged' or 'Jury-Rigged'?

0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:07.680
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain Stuff,

0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:12.799
<v Speaker 1>Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, it's easy in the English language to

0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:16.200
<v Speaker 1>mix up words and phrases. Take it from someone who

0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:19.640
<v Speaker 1>says words into a microphone for a living. One that

0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:22.439
<v Speaker 1>often gets me is having read a word but never

0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:25.840
<v Speaker 1>heard it aloud, and thus messing up the pronunciation. If

0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:28.120
<v Speaker 1>you've been listening to the show for any amount of time,

0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:29.880
<v Speaker 1>I am sure that you have heard me do this.

0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:34.720
<v Speaker 1>But we have so many homophones and other sound alikes

0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:40.000
<v Speaker 1>in English that our already confusing idioms can easily get misstated.

0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:44.920
<v Speaker 1>After all, for all intentsive purposes, it is a doggy

0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:49.440
<v Speaker 1>dog world out there. Ah, that should be for all

0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:54.160
<v Speaker 1>intents and purposes, it is a dog eat dog world.

0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:58.560
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna nip this example in the bud, not the butt,

0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.960
<v Speaker 1>and get to today's point. If something is put together,

0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:07.880
<v Speaker 1>shall we say, interestingly, is it jury rigged or jerry rigged?

0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:13.040
<v Speaker 1>This is one case where both are actually valid phrases.

0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.160
<v Speaker 1>You can use them more or less interchangeably, but they

0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:20.760
<v Speaker 1>do have slightly different meanings. A jury rigged refers to

0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:24.800
<v Speaker 1>a clever but temporary solution to a problem. A something

0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:29.800
<v Speaker 1>built quickly making use of whatever's on hand, whereas jerry

0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:33.360
<v Speaker 1>rigged refers to something that was built hastily and poorly

0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:37.720
<v Speaker 1>from the start. The two phrases have grown together in

0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:43.160
<v Speaker 1>modern English use, but they have different enymological histories. The

0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:46.960
<v Speaker 1>term jury rigged first caught on in these seventeen hundreds,

0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:50.560
<v Speaker 1>where it was recorded in newspaper articles as a strictly

0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:55.480
<v Speaker 1>nautical term. Jury in this case does not mean a

0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:58.840
<v Speaker 1>group of people sworn to fairly decide the outcome of

0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:03.200
<v Speaker 1>a court case or contest. At the time, the word

0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:06.400
<v Speaker 1>jury could mean a group of people who judges something,

0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:10.520
<v Speaker 1>but it could also describe something makeshift that had been

0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:16.560
<v Speaker 1>improvised for temporary use, perhaps especially in a nautical emergency.

0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:20.640
<v Speaker 1>The two homophones come from different roots. The judgment type

0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:22.959
<v Speaker 1>of jury dates all the way back to a Latin

0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:27.800
<v Speaker 1>word meaning to swear. The makeshift type of jury comes

0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:32.359
<v Speaker 1>from the Middle English word jury, meaning improvised. In reference

0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:36.720
<v Speaker 1>to sailing around the fourteen hundreds, a jury sail was

0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:39.360
<v Speaker 1>a sail that had been repaired well enough to catch

0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:43.120
<v Speaker 1>the wind and get you where you were going. The

0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:47.639
<v Speaker 1>rigged in jury rig also originated in the fourteen hundreds

0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:50.240
<v Speaker 1>and refers to the rigging of a boat or ship,

0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:53.760
<v Speaker 1>you know, the ropes and braces that control the sails

0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:58.200
<v Speaker 1>and support the masts of the vessel. So taken together,

0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:03.079
<v Speaker 1>the phrase jury rigged, although nautical in origin, refers generally

0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.960
<v Speaker 1>to a solution that repairs or replaces something well enough

0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:12.000
<v Speaker 1>for now, I think mcgeiver. It's not fancy, but it works.

0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:18.600
<v Speaker 1>And that's not exactly what jerry rigged means. It isn't

0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:22.720
<v Speaker 1>well understood how the term jerry rigged originated, but okay,

0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:26.799
<v Speaker 1>sometime in the mid eighteen hundreds, like the eighteen thirties

0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:30.240
<v Speaker 1>to the eighteen sixties, were not totally sure. The term

0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:34.640
<v Speaker 1>jerry built popped up, possibly around Lancashire in the north

0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:39.640
<v Speaker 1>of England and maybe Liverpool or thereabouts. Jerry built described

0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:44.880
<v Speaker 1>something that was built cheaply or crudely, without capability or finesse.

0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:49.160
<v Speaker 1>It was an insult. It's thought to have originated in

0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.640
<v Speaker 1>the masculine first name Jerry, but no one is sure how.

0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.840
<v Speaker 1>And it's important to point out here that the English

0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:01.160
<v Speaker 1>dismissive slang for German soldiers being jerry didn't crop up

0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:04.240
<v Speaker 1>until World War One at least fifty years later, and

0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:08.760
<v Speaker 1>is thought to be unrelated anyway. However, it came to

0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:13.880
<v Speaker 1>be jerry built, and a related noun, jerrybuilder, entered the

0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:18.880
<v Speaker 1>English language in the eighteen hundreds. From there, these words

0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:23.080
<v Speaker 1>seem to have crossed paths with jury rigged, and this

0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.599
<v Speaker 1>is probably how we got the term jerry rigged, meaning

0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:30.320
<v Speaker 1>something built shodily or without a good plan, which is

0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:35.320
<v Speaker 1>an important distinction from jury rigged. Something jury rigged might

0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:39.040
<v Speaker 1>look silly but can actually be very clever and functional,

0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:48.680
<v Speaker 1>but something jerry rigged looks silly and is silly. Today's

0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:51.400
<v Speaker 1>episode is based on the article is it jury rigged

0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:54.240
<v Speaker 1>or jerry rigged? On how stuffworks dot Com, written by

0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:57.440
<v Speaker 1>Lori L. Dove. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in

0:04:57.480 --> 0:04:59.839
<v Speaker 1>partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced by

0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:03.320
<v Speaker 1>Time Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit

0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.640
<v Speaker 1>the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:07.599
<v Speaker 1>your favorite shows.