Jury rig
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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.
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[edit] 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]
- "Jury-mast" derived from "injury-mast", though The Oxford English Dictionary indicates no evidence has been found to support this theory.[1]
- From the French du jour ("of the day"), and thus temporary[citation needed]
[edit] Rigging
While ships typically carried a number of spare parts, 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.[5]
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.
[edit] Similar phrases
- The phrase "jerry-built" has a separate origin and implies shoddy workmanship not necessarily of a temporary nature.[6][7]
- The term "jerry-rigged" is a relatively recent mingling (or perhaps garbling) of "jury rig" with "jerry-built".[8]
- Several slang terms combine a noun or adjective with the suffix "-rig" to denote an improvised or poor quality repair, often used pejoratively:
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- nigger-rig - Based on the racial slur "nigger", this is likely to be interpreted as offensive and vulgar. Sometimes called Afro-Engineering attested since the mid-1960s, especially in the Southern United States.[9]
- jimmy-rig - perhaps a mingling of the verb jimmy and jury-rig, indicating a repair requiring force[citation needed]
- ghetto-rig
[edit] Further reading
- John Harland, Seamanship in the Age of Sail (Naval Institute Press, 1984)
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ a b c 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ WORD COURT ARCHIVES March 10, 2004 Accessed 2007-03-11
- ^ J.E. Lighter, ed., Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Volume 2, H-O (New York, Random House, 1997), 664.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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