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The forgotten meaning of "jerk"

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Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"

#71

Post by bigDinosaur »

zahlman wrote: post #43
permo-w wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the British slang version of the word "cheers" is a very good example of this. I can tell you for absolute certain that the most people use the word "cheers" to mean "thanks", but if you go online and look up the definition, you will be told it also means goodbye, which it really doesn't, but I think this arises from the fact that it's a bit more relaxed form of thanks, so people frequently say it as thank you at the…

>but if you go online and look up the definition, you will be told it also means goodbye, which it really doesn't, but I think this arises from the fact that it's a bit more relaxed form of thanks, so people frequently say it as thank you at the end of an interaction where directly thanking the person might sound a bit awkward or overly formal. Possibly also because of the phonetic similarity with "ciao"?

I find it a big stretch to consider 'ciao' phonetically similar to 'cheers', at least in terms of confusing them which I doubt any English speaker would.

Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"

#72

Post by scotty79 »

sdrothrock wrote: post #20

The evolution of "jerk" makes me also think of "nimrod" and how it referred to the biblical hunter and meant someone with great skills in hunting, until it was used to refer to Elmer Fudd, at which point the meaning changed to mean a complete idiot. https://thehabit.co/nimrod-hectoring-maudlin-eponymns-and-pe...

It's also still used as a name in Israel, I think.

Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"

#73

Post by gladiatr72 »

sdrothrock wrote: post #20

The evolution of "jerk" makes me also think of "nimrod" and how it referred to the biblical hunter and meant someone with great skills in hunting, until it was used to refer to Elmer Fudd, at which point the meaning changed to mean a complete idiot. https://thehabit.co/nimrod-hectoring-maudlin-eponymns-and-pe...

For anyone that knew the reference, it was ironic. Needless to say, most of the viewers of that cartoon did not. There were more of the later than former, thus..

Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"

#74

Post by cortesoft »

sdrothrock wrote: post #20

The evolution of "jerk" makes me also think of "nimrod" and how it referred to the biblical hunter and meant someone with great skills in hunting, until it was used to refer to Elmer Fudd, at which point the meaning changed to mean a complete idiot. https://thehabit.co/nimrod-hectoring-maudlin-eponymns-and-pe...

That change has a singular impetus, though. The shift in a word like jerk seems to be more subtle and take longer.

Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"

#75

Post by mangamadaiyan »

aidenn0 wrote: post #49
jvm___ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently the trick for roller coasters is to keep the passengers hearts in the same plane so they don't perceive the ride as jerky.

Unless you are in Poland; then you need to keep the Poles in the right-hand plane or it will be unstable.

I thought the Poles needed to be either all on the left-hand plane, or within the unit disk, for stability? (I haven't had my coffee yet, so maybe I'm remembering wrong).

Either way, I loved the joke. Thank you!

Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"

#76

Post by CraigJPerry »

On a tangent from the article since this isn't a forgotten meaning of jerk but i've always been surprised at how often the 3rd derivative of position crops up usefully in life.

Just as interesting to me is the fact I've never (i don't think) had a practical use for the 4th derivative, jounce (think this is a British English term, American is snap i believe). The only place i've seen it used is in car suspension design.

Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"

#77

Post by heresie-dabord »

permo-w wrote: post #36
handsclean wrote: post #13

I wonder if it used to be that people largely weren’t on the same page, and didn’t know it. It’s not like people consult dictionaries to learn what slang means, or even usually ask somebody, and the definitions are related enough that responses usually don’t distinguish them. I’ve noticed it’s not uncommon online that a post’s likes are split between opposing interpretations, like agreeing with its politics vs seeing…

the British slang version of the word "cheers" is a very good example of this. I can tell you for absolute certain that the most people use the word "cheers" to mean "thanks", but if you go online and look up the definition, you will be told it also means goodbye, which it really doesn't, but I think this arises from the fact that it's a bit more relaxed form of thanks, so people frequently say it as thank you at the…

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cheer

From Norman French, "face, merry faces, festivity"; from Late Latin, "head".

The sense of smiling, merry expression, good cheer, cheerful, is well attested in literature. "Cheers" is a versatile modern expression. I have heard it as "thanks", "drink well" (of course), and yes even "see you later".

Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"

#78

Post by sokoloff »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #76

On a tangent from the article since this isn't a forgotten meaning of jerk but i've always been surprised at how often the 3rd derivative of position crops up usefully in life. Just as interesting to me is the fact I've never (i don't think) had a practical use for the 4th derivative, jounce (think this is a British English term, American is snap i believe). The only place i've seen it used is in car suspension desig…

In American Mech E, the 4th through 6th derivatives of position are snap, crackle, and pop.

Since graduating over 30 years ago, I’ve only ever used or cited crackle and pop on internet message boards or as trivia, never in actual engineering.

Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"

#79

Post by gitremote »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #54

The term "racist" used to mean someone who believed that one's race, or ethnic background was superior to another's. It was a form of belief in racial supremacy. It didn't mean that someone used race as a form of prejudice. But for decades this hasn't been the case, and it is almost exclusively used to describe someone who uses prejudice or discriminates others on the basis of race or ethnicity. And now we no longer…

For the vast majority of the situations in a English-speaking society, the term for that type of person is a "white supremacist". For example, a person who does Nazi salutes, or wants to update refugee policy so that the majority of immigrants are White South Africans, is a white supremacist.

Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"

#80

Post by tjmc »

I suspect this unawareness of language use is universal. When I lived in the UK in the early 90's, people would discuss the weather in celcius when it was cold and fahrenheit when it was warm with seemingly no idea that they'd switched.
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