Jury rig
Jury rigging refers to makeshift repairs or temporary contrivances, made with only the tools and materials that happen to be on hand. Originally a nautical term, on sailing ships a jury rig is a replacement mast and yards improvised in case of damage or loss of the original mast.
Etymology
The phrase "jury rigged" has been in use since at least 1788.[1] However, the adjectival use of "jury" in the sense of makeshift or temporary dates from at least 1616, when it appeared in John Smith's A Description of New England.[1] It appeared again, in a similar passage, in Smith's more extensive The General History of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles published in 1624.[2][3]
There are several theories about the origin of this usage of "jury":
- From the Latin adjutare ("to aid") via Old French ajurie ("help or relief").[4]
- A corruption of joury mast—i.e. a mast for the day, a temporary mast, being a spare used for the nonce when the mast has been carried away. (French, jour, a day.)[5]
- Contraction in the nautical tradition for injury
Rigging
While ships typically carried a number of spare parts (e.g., items such as topmasts), the lower masts, at up to one meter in diameter, were too large to carry spares. So a jury mast could be various things. Ships always carried a variety of spare sails, so rigging the jury mast once erected was mostly a matter of selecting appropriate size. Contemporary drawings and paintings show a wide variety of jury rigs, attesting to the creativity of sailors faced with the need to save their ships. Example jury-rig configurations are:
- A spare topmast
- The main boom of a brig
- To replace the foremast with the mizzenmast: mentioned in W. Brady's The Kedge Anchor (1852)
- The bowsprit set upright and tied to the stump of the original mast.
The Jury mast knot is often mentioned as a method to provide the anchor points for securing makeshift stays and shrouds to the new mast. However, there is a lack of hard evidence regarding the knot's actual historical use.[6]
Although ships were observed to perform reasonably well under jury rig, the rig was quite a bit weaker than the original, and the ship's first priority was normally to steer for the nearest friendly port and get replacement masts.
Similar phrases
- A false etymology is that "Jerry-rigged" was employed by World War II British troops to refer to the German use of scavenged parts to keep vehicles and weapons functional, from the use of "Jerry" as a pejorative term for German soldiers.
- The phrase "jerry-built" has a separate origin and implies shoddy workmanship not necessarily of a temporary nature.[7][8]
- "Jiggered" is derived from "jerry-rigged". Although this has come into more common usage, it is still a pejorative term used to denote a poor quality short-lasting fix.
- To "MacGyver" something is to rig up something in a hurry to make an item work, from the U.S. television show of the same name and its title character, who would often use such homemade rigs.
- "Nigger-rig" is based on the racial slur "nigger" and is attested since the mid-1960s, especially in the Southern United States.[9] The term is considered offensive and vulgar.
See also
References
- ^ a b The Oxford English Dictionary, Volume V, H-K (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933; corrected reprinting 1966), 637.
- ^ Captaine Iohn Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (London: Michael Sparkes, 1624; 2006 UNC digital republication), 223. (Online edition.)
- ^ Note that in the orthography of Early Modern English 'I' was often used in place of 'J', thus the actual quote from Smith(1624) reads, "...we had re-accommodated a Iury-mast to returne for Plimoth..."
- ^ Robert K. Barnhart, ed., Barnhart dictionary of etymology, (New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1988), 560.
- ^ E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
- ^ Charles Hamel, "Investigations on the Jury Mast Knot" [1] [2] [3] Accessed 2007-02-22.
- ^ William and Mary Morris, Morris Dictionary of Words and Phrase Origins, 2nd Edition (New York: HarperCollins, 1988), 321-322.
- ^ "'jerry-built'/'jury-rigged'". alt.usage.english Word Origins FAQ. Accessed 2006-05-25.
- ^ J.E. Lighter, ed (1997). "nigger-rig". Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang. 2 (H-O). New York: Random House. pp. 664.
Further reading
- John Harland, Seamanship in the Age of Sail (Naval Institute Press, 1984)
External links