J Words
Submitted by Sarah D. Bunting on December 5, 2007 – 10:03 AM182 Comments
1. Something that is built haphazardly/slapped together/makeshift is:
a) jury-rigged; b) jerry-rigged
Both appear in the 11c; “jury-rigged” is the older construction. Which do you use?
2. Something that is built hastily/built poorly/looks cheap is:
a) jank/janky/janked; b) jenk/jenky/jenked
Neither appears in the 11C. Which of these do you use?
Just curious about the usage pattern on these; feel free to post your location/your hometown in the comments, in case it’s trackable. I usually say “jury-rigged” (or “jerry-built”), but if my father said “jerry-rigged,” it would sound more like “jury-rigged” because he’s got that Philly flavor. And I usually say “jank,” but if I add the Y, I say “jenky” instead.
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Tags: Ask The Readers grammar
Jerry-rigged.
and I’ve never heard of “jank” or any of those variations…
I’m east-coast Australian.
!. Jury-rigged
2. Have never heard the expression – but I like it. I think I’ll start using “Janky.”
I’m from southern Ontario (Canada).
Neither of these were in the local or family vocabulary for me (Chicago, later its suburbs, mother from Iowa), never heard ’em used in conversation.
1. When I said it myself I would say “jerry-rigged,” because that’s what I saw in my reading (mostly in classic British mysteries like Christie and Sayers, so I’m surprised to hear that it’s not the more historically respectable choice).
2. Never heard of this in my life (60 years now, and living in the mid-Atlantic area the last 25 years) till this moment.
1. Jerry-rigged. I’m a military brat, and grew up all over the US. I never heard “jury-rigged” till a couple years ago here in the DC area.
2. I only say the phrase “janked up,” never just “janked.” I picked it up from a coworker about four years ago and can’t seem to let it go. I don’t know where she’s from, but she sounded Northern.
I’ve seen both jury-rigged and jerry-rigged, but I’ve only ever used jury-rigged (grew up in Rhode Island, have lived in New Hampshire or Massachusetts since).
I’ve never used, or even come across, either of the janky/jenky constructions at all.
I’ve always thought it was “gerry-rigged”, from the World War I slang for our German enemies…called “Gerries”…at the end of the war they were poorly supplied & had to make do with the stuff at hand.
1. I’ve never said it, but I would think that “jerry-rigged” is the one I would be more partial to.
2. I was not aware that any of these were actually words, although that’s probably because my friend Luke says “jank” all the time, and he tends to use words that are… not words.
Alberta, Canada.
I’m from and have always lived in Chicago — I say jerry-rigged and janky
I say “jerry-rigged” but spell it jury-rigged. I exclusively use ‘janky.’
I was born in Minnesota, raised in Arizona, and now live in Los Angeles, California. Most of my pronunciation can be traced to the way my mid-western parents say things, but sometimes I bust out with the rarely heard ‘Arizona twang.’
Like Cori, Adrienne, JAK, liz and probably many others, I grew up with the “n-word” version of jerry-rigged. I’m born-and-bred Texan (seventh-generation) and — sad to say — it’s just as common down here as “y’all.” And I guess I should clarify that my family is East Texan (and therefore mighty country). I doubt very much that you’d hear the “n-word” version in any of the big cities, at least not in public.
As a result, I’m not comfortable with saying jerry-rigged or any other modifiation of the term, just knowing what the original version of it is down here. I just say “slapped together” or “MacGyvered” or whatever else comes to mind in the moment.
Oh, and: janky.
1) jury-rigged, though i’m a geek so i’m probably more likely to say something is klugy or is a kluge
2) never heard of any of these either. It seems like I ought to have a word for this, but I can’t think of any at the moment. Closest seems to be crappy, cheap, shoddy, or chintzy.
Western PA, Central OH, DC metro area for the most part.
I don’t use any of the “jenk/jank” terms & have never heard them.
My mother says “jerry-rigged”. My dad says “jury-rigged”. I say either.
My grandfather the horrible racist says the version of that where he uses a six-letter word beginning with “n” in place of “jerry” or “jury”, which, ew. And I hear that construction more than I’d like.
1. Jury-rigged
2. Never heard of these – does “junky” count as the same thing?
I’m from northwest Ohio, with a Mom from St. Louis and a Dad from Ohio, and I’ve lived in Minneapolis for 20 years now. Urgh, I’m old (38.)
1. Jury-rigged
2. I’ve never heard of either term, but the first two meanings sound like what I’d call a kludge.
For region tracking purposes, I’ve spent most of my life in the Oklahoma/Missouri/Kansas area.
I would like to say, in defense of Texas, the more racist versions of jerry-rigged are just as common in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama (in my experience.) I still maintain it’s an aging redneck thing, and not a cultural thing. You know, lest everybody decide the Friendship state isn’t so friendly. We’ve got Democrats, we swear!
1. Jury-rigged. Long before I ever saw it written down, I’d been trying to figure out how the word was spelled, in order to figure out how I should pronounce it myself. (If that makes any sense.) This just made more sense to my little brain.
2. Not familiar with either
I’m in Canadia.
p.s. Kat, I think the correct version might be something like “cater-corner”
I live in Oregon and I’ve always heard “jerry-rigged” and “janky.” My parents mispronounce a lot of things, though, so I may not be the best judge.
Late to the party, but I always associate “jury-rigged” with the corruption of the judicial process by paying off members of the jury, thus rigging the outcome. So I use “jerry-rigged” for something hasty and makeshift.
And, regarding janky/jenky, I favour “crappy”.
One of my favorite phrases is “jenky git.” It’s a handy insult – especially since apparently about 2/5 of people will have no idea what you’re saying. I use “jenky” to imply that there is something off about something or someone – not necessarily that it/they used to be better, and is NOW jenky, just a blanket statement of status…sort of.
If I’m using it in the past tense, though, I go with “janked.” I think because I also like “ganked.”
“Crapped together” is now on my list of favorite phrases.
Oh, and I generally go with “jury-rigged” in pronunciation, but would probably write it as “jerry-rigged.”
I say jerry-rigged. And, well, I’ve never heard that other one before, but I think I’d say janky.
I’m from northern California, but I also lived in Austin, TX and now I’m living in New York. So my accent is… well, interesting.
I’d say Jury-rigged but wouldn’t bllink if I heard Jerry-rigged. And for the second I’d say “Jankety”, never Jank or Janked. Is it possible this second one is a generational thing? It’s not a word I picture anyone over about 35 using.
1. Jury-rigged. Though, now that I think of it, I’ve never actually seen this in writing; I just always assumed it was “jury” based on the way it sounded.
2. In high school, I had a friend who used “to jank” and “to gank” meaning “to swipe something.” Example: “While I was in the bathroom, somebody janked my purse!” Or maybe: “He ganked a coffee mug from Mr. Hyatt’s room.” Aside from this, I’ve never heard either janky or jenky before. And now I wonder where she got that usage from. (Also, the spell check on this comment space doesn’t think very highly of jank, jenk, or gank.)
I’m from southwest Ohio.
I’m from Philly
Jerry and jury are slurred together. I say juhrry-rigged, basically. Isn’t THAT sexy.
And I say “junky” or, more often “shitty” or “jacked up.”
Small-town Kansas born and raised.
a) I’ve heard jerry-rigged, but I’ve never seen it written out, so I’m not sure how we’d spell it.
b) My initial thought is jank/ed/y, but my Kansas accent doesn’t leave much room in the pronunciation variation between jank and jenk.
1) would be jury-rigged, but usually I say mickey-mouse’d (if it’s crap) or macgyver’d (if it’s impressive)
2) I don’t use either and can’t quite hear a difference in pronunciation when I say them aloud. I’ve been trying to think what I do/would say: hinky, wonky, skanky, tacky.
from Southern California (San Diego)
Jerry-rigged and janky. I was born on the central coast of CA, grew up in Bakersfield, CA, defected to San Diego as fast as humanly possible post-high school, and now live in Ventura, CA. My dad is from the south and my mom grew up everywhere east of the Mississippi from Minnesota and Jersey to Alabama and Texas.
I’m most curious as to what the collated results of this informal survey will reveal.
1) Jury-rigged, though I have heard jerry-rigged and that sounds fine to me too.
2) Haven’t heard of either, I’d probably use piece of junk, though I do like (and have used in the past) craptastic.
Born and raised in Lowell, MA, went to college in Western MA, now in NH.
I’ve always said “jury-rigged,” which is the term my father uses. I don’t think my mother uses it much, although she says “jury-rigged” too.
Never heard of “janky” or any of its variations.
I’m another one of these posters who is a Texan from numerous generations of Texans, but my parents both lived out of state (Korea, Georgia, Florida, New York) for some time in their 20s and early 30s. Don’t know if that had any influence. I too always heard that “jerry-rigged” was a reference to German soldiers in WWII (and, however impressive German engineering may be, they were seriously running out of stuff at the end of the war). My mother’s father was a Texan who grew up speaking German, which might have something to do with a preference for the “jury-rigged” construction, although I doubt it. It seems like “jury-rigged” is the preference for most well-educated native Texans I know personally, and “jerry-rigged” or more objectionable variations are more common here among people who have had fewer educational opportunities. I suspect that this dichotomy probably does not hold up in other areas of the country.
I am English by birth, and currently a midwast resident. I would use “jury-rigged” in the first case. I was aware of its nautical origin, not of the significance or derivation of ‘jury’. Thinking about the word, I suppose that both the legal and nautical versions could have a common derivation as ‘thrown together from different pieces’. Jenk, to me, sounds like the South African pronounciation of junk, not sure about jank.
I have heard the racist phrase used in both Tennessee and Texas, and also the cleaned-up version ‘Afro-engineered’.
1. Jerry-rigged.
2. What?
Grew up in St. Louis, parents from New Orleans. Spent teen years in Chattanooga, TN.
1. Jury-rigged
2. Janky – though for me it doesn’t necessarily mean “crappy”, it has more of a “this may fall apart at any moment” connotation. I’ve also never used “jank/janked”.
I’ve lived on both coasts and in the middle, so I’m not sure where my usage comes from at this point.
I would call it jerry rigged, as for the janky thing… I grew up on the Canadian/US boarder in Buffalo, NY and janky describes crappy quality, junk, trash, worthless products, can be used to describe cars, houses or merchandise in any form. Janky is definitely a North Eastern word for the true yankees.