121–130 of 142 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was an adult in my twenties when that movie came out and thought the title was odd as it didn’t seem to fit him. Maybe I had already transitioned from idiot to mild asshole.
> Maybe I had already transitioned from idiot to mild asshole. Well, happens to us all eventually, haha.
Anyone who drives faster than you is a jerk. Anyone who drives slower is an idiot.
After this specialization, from general stupidity to obnoxious and irritating stupidity, it is a small shift to pure obnoxiousness, implying moral but not intellectual inferiority.
But why, of many suitable words, "jerk" was the one who made this transition? Who is responsible?
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fucking hell, there's no way. The goodbye notion sounded outlandish to me, but could it be the same as OP? https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/17tzcl5/comment/k915... says > I certainly use it as a goodbye - typically after meeting someone in the street and stopping to chat, but also generally. Also as an informal signoff for email and saying goodbye over telephone. > > 64M British, brought up in London. Now, I'm…
I've absolutely heard it used that way, in 1990s West Midlands England. Person seeing me walk out the door: "Cheers! See you tomorrow!".
you're suggesting a family member might say this as you were leaving?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not? I haven't seen it since the 70s, although that should be warning enough. I do remember "a rags-to riches-to rags story" tagline however.
Speaking of warnings, this one is all caps. They must mean business! > The Jerk (1979) "For Theater Owners Only" Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GZMbj8dt1o It’s hard to be this bad intentionally, and it somehow wraps around to being good again, and that’s knowing it’s an ad and the premise is suspect. Steve Martin is that good. It raises an interesting point that I’ll put to the projectionists of HN: Were th…
Interesting. I'm thirty-something and I do seem to remember my grandparents using "jerk" to mean "idiot", but for my entire life I've always thought of it as a kid-friendly way to say "asshole". It always confused me when my grandparents would call someone who was perfectly nice a "jerk", and it wasn't until I watched the Steve Martin movie four or five years ago that I understood why.
I've only really heard women use the term jerk, ascribed to a man. I always found it notable because it seemed to be ascribed to behavior of that special and peculiar class where The behavior benefits the man over the concerns of the woman, with an undercurrent that the women will tolerate it because the man is of a high reproductive value. Often to me the behavior rises to what I would think would be despicable, tha…
For example, here's a famous clip from Norm MacDonald. https://youtu.be/JBrVPv-wiww
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The next level i.e., rate of change of Jerk is called Jounce. However, I'm afraid I don't know how that would be described in car passenger's terms in your example.
I personally prefer snap over jounce, as that gives the progression snap, crackle, and pop. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth,_fifth,_and_sixth_deriv...
Obviously, someone on the intertubes was being a jerk about jounce!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>and yes even "see you later". this being my point. how do you know that what you were hearing wasn't someone saying thanks as they were leaving?
I think you’re right. You do (or, at least, when I imagine it in my head, I do) hear it frequently used when saying goodbye, but I don’t think it would be used to say goodbye. If someone said ‘cheers’ to me when parting, I’d interpret it the same way as if they’d said ‘thanks’ — which could be slightly strange, depending on the situation.
Maybe it is a conflation of cheers (smiles, thanks) and cheerio (old-fashioned familiar good-bye).
I wonder how much of it is that in today's society it is worse to be disagreeable than it is to be inept.