The correct answer is at the bottom of this thread. Down voted, [flagged] and [dead] as usual. "Jerk" is sexual slang.
The forgotten meaning of "jerk"
81–90 of 142 posts
Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"
#82It's a good time as any to remind everyone that The Jerk is still one of the funniest movies ever made. It could never be made today, and I suggest you pick up a copy if you've never seen it.
I watched it again recently because someone I knew had never seen it. It's actually not very funny anymore. I am still amused at a lot of the jokes in it, but more in an academic sense because I remember how funny it was. There's a lot of stuff in it that's really funny on paper but just doesn't make you actually laugh anymore. Comedy doesn't really age that well, and I believe that it's because what surprises us and…
There's certainly something to novelty wearing off with time but I don't think that diminishes historical work. When I listen to Abbott and Costello perform "Who's on First?" (c. 1938) - it's still funny. It's not intrinsically less funny because I've heard it and things it inspired many times over.
It's also in how you watch things. I sometimes catch old films in the theatre and the room is filled with laughter. I was belly laughing to The Palm Beach Story (Sturges, 1942). Heck, I've been to see Shakespeare where everyone's laughing.
Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"
#83I always thought it was the third derivative of position
I like to use the example of being a passenger in a car. • Position is where you are at any moment. If you're not moving, your position doesn't change. • Velocity is how quickly your position changes. If you are doing 30 MPH on a perfectly straight road with no stops and starts, you may not even notice you're moving until you look out the window. • Acceleration is how quickly your velocity changes. It's the force tha…
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.
Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"
#84The 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…
It is hardly surprising that people don't bother differentiating between those that think they are inherently superior by dint of their race versus those that think others are innately inferior by dint of their race. The one implies the other. And those who would impose such views when met with counterexamples, with condescension, mockery, shunning, exclusion, and violence, are never so far behind.
Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"
#85The correct answer is at the bottom of this thread. Down voted, [flagged] and [dead] as usual. "Jerk" is sexual slang.
Yes, it's one of the contenders for the etymology of the insult.
To be crude but accurate, we're looking at semantic drift from a jerk being a jerk off to a jerk ass.
Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"
#86Earlier 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…
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".
>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?
Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"
#87Earlier 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…
Ok, but you can also use "thanks" as a goodbye. Consider ending a phone call, maybe "thanks" is for whatever they called about, but it's effectively "goodbye" before hanging up.
you can use it in place of goodbye, but you would be using it with different meaning. this is illustrated by the fact that there are certain situations in which you would never end an interaction with "thanks", but you might "goodbye". for example ending a call with a lover
Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"
#88Earlier 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…
I would have thought it means "I wish you well" which applies in both of those though more in the "goodbye" case.
this is an interesting point. perhaps then the original meaning covered goodbye and it's drifted towards mostly meaning thank you, but then there's some drift back towards goodbye? god but language is complicated though. undoubtedly I'm wrong and it's far more complex
Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"
#89On 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.
IME crackle and pop are used in space raft design to minimize structural stresses and fuel consumption during orbital maneuvers, precision CNC manufacturing to reduce vibration and improve tolerances, robots like pick and places to minimize wear and tear, semiconductor fabs for their precision positioning systems, and cam design for engines.
Re: The forgotten meaning of "jerk"
#90the post is gaslighting his own mom
> It’s that some of the folks who used to use it that way don’t remember that they did. When I asked my mom to define the word this week, she used the modern meaning, with no apparent recollection of her former firm conviction that a jerk was a dope, dodo, or dimwit. Did someone Neuralyze my mom,
No, they didn't. It's well documented the meaning was already changing in the 70s. "The Jerk" the movie might make it seem ambiguous but usage meaning "obnoxious/asshole" was common in the 70s and 80s. Dictionary defintions just mean they were out of date to common usage.
It doesn't help that you can warp the "idiot" meaning into the "obnoxious" meaning in the form of "If you'd stop being stupid you'd realize your being obnoxious".
> In fact, “the 1970s is when you start to see the obnoxious meaning really take off,” says Michael Adams, an English professor and specialist in lexicography at Indiana University Bloomington and the author of Slang: The People’s Poetry and other books about language. Not only was there “a rising use of ‘jerk,’” but there was also “the absolutely predictable development” of “compound forms like jerk ass, jerk face, jerk wad, jerk weed. … That is another reflection of the obnoxious meaning, and basically a generation of heavy slang users looking for a way not to sound like they come from the 1930s by using jerk in the traditional way of their parents and grandparents.” Martin, Adams notes, was in his mid-30s when The Jerk came out, old enough that in contrast to the kids on the cutting edge of jerk usage, he would have been “referring to an older use of the word.”