Answer: The Difference Between Jury-Rigged and Jerry-Built

[mab-browne.livejournal.com]

sidlj asked about the proper usage of "jury-rigged" and "jerry-built", and I thought, 'Ha! I know this one!', but I also discovered that something that I'd thought I'd known was wrong. Who'd a thunk?

Samantha Carter and Rodney McKay will assist with today's explanations.



The site thefreedictionary.com gives this definition of jury-rig:

To rig or assemble for temporary emergency use; improvise:
From jury-rig, jury-rigging, improvised rigging on a ship, modeled on jury-mast, temporary mast, perhaps ultimately from Old French ajurie.

Fannish Example #1:

Sam's ability to jury-rig repairs to DHDs while under fire was deeply appreciated by her fellow-members of SG-1.

Merriam-Webster Online defines jerry-built thus:

Built cheaply and unsubstantially; carelessly or hastily put together
Origin unknown
First Known Use: 1869

Fannish example #2:

Rodney despised shoddy engineering at the best of times, but a jerry-built Genii atomic bomb filled him with horror as well as contempt.

Both words refer to something roughly put together and temporary, but they have quite different shades of meaning.

Something that is jury-rigged works for the purpose. If you jury-rig a solution, you have acted with initiative, self-sufficiency, or cleverness to create something useful and helpful.

Something that is jerry-built was always a piece of rubbish and unfit for its purpose. When I first met this expression I assumed that it came out of the insulting WW2 slang referring to Germans as 'jerries' (I read a lot of my brother's Commando! comics at the time I first met 'jerry-built'), but the phrase actually goes back to the nineteenth century. A wander through a borrowed Shorter Oxford Dictionary reveals that 'jerry' also had meanings of 'to shake or tumble', a jerry-shop was a rough tavern, and jerry was also short for 'jeroboam' (which among other things was slang for a chamber pot).

For added confusion, jerry-rigged has also entered the language, and Merriam Webster Online defines it thus:

Organized or constructed in a crude or improvised manner - 'a jerry–rigged plan'
Probably blend of jerry-built and jury-rigged
First Known Use: 1959

In summary, jury-rigged is generally a neutral or even positive term, and jerry-built is an insult. I racked my brain for a mnemonic; perhaps remembering that juries and justice are generally regarded as a good thing might help with jury-rigged at least.

Comments

[rhiannonhero.livejournal.com]

Very interesting!!

[mab-browne.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :-)

[vamysteryfan.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I always assumed jerry-built was related to the Nazis.

[mab-browne.livejournal.com]

So I'm not the only one. Phew...

[sid]

I always thought that came from WWII, too! The things you learn....

Thank you!

[mab-browne.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. :-)

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

huh. Must be a regional thing. I've never heard either. It's always been jerry-rigged in my book (and my dad was kind of jerry-rigging things in our house...our house was held together with duct tape and rubber bands I think). That's how I always heard it. Kind of like I was shocked to find out no one had ever heard the phrase "kitty-corner" when I went off to college. They had always heard it as "katty-corner". I grew up in Chicago.

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

I grew up with kitty-corner in Southern California! A quick look in the dictionary says it's an accepted alternate spelling:

cater-cornered (also cater-corner or catty-cornered or kitty-corner)

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

See, I had never hear it as anything except kitty-corner until I went to college in a small town in Missouri. Most of my classmates came from more rural areas and St. Louis or Kansas City. They thought I was crazy for saying it kitty-corner because they had never ever heard that before.

I find all this stuff interesting. Probably why I was a linguistics major in college (never finished my degree, though).

[mab-browne.livejournal.com]

And then you have the benighted *g* foreigners who don't meet either kitty-corner or catty-corner until they find it in fanfic, and are at first mightily confused. It's been one of the fun things about the internet - seeing how people really do use the same language completely differently. :-)

[dark-weezing.livejournal.com]

Fascinating. I have not heard jerry-rigged in some time, so this is a nice refresher.

[mab-browne.livejournal.com]

Jerry-rigged hasn't yet reached NZ, so I was all 0_o when I discovered there was another variation. :-)

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

Having grown up in the US Deep South, I heard the racially offensive term "n*****-rigged" all the time and assumed that "jerry-rigged" was its euphemism, and that "jury-rigged" was a ret-conned euphemism for the euphemism. Subsequently, I've always avoided using any of the terms.

"Makeshift", "slip-shod", "ad hoc" and other synonyms were my substitutes.

[rykaine.livejournal.com]

That one. I just avoid the issue all together by substituting synonyms. Less frustrating.

I'm in NC. I've had neighbors and extended family who used the offensive term. It makes me cringe--and glad I no longer live near them.

[mab-browne.livejournal.com]

Well, now you know that jury-rigged has its own pedigree :-), but it's understandable that it may not make a difference. I know that discovering that jerry-built is actually 19th century isn't going to stop the word having associations with badly drawn German soldiers for me.

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

Knowing the exact etymologies now makes it more likely that if I ever use the terms, it would be in historical fiction (or a time-travel story LOL) where they add cultural atmosphere.

[mistress-tien.livejournal.com]

I knew the answer in my gut, but you've illustrated it perfectly. Your examples will stick in my mind well.

Thanks for sharing!

[mab-browne.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[pathology-doc.livejournal.com]

IAWTC and a damn good post.

Except towards the end of both wars, the Germans never built anything shoddy. Anyone who said otherwise was facing it on the battlefield (comic-book or otherwise) and saying that to comfort themselves!

[snailbones.livejournal.com]

I always assumed 'jerry' was a WWII reference too. You just never know what you don't know until you look it up *g*