Talk:jerry-built

I always thought that this derived from WWII when the Germans (aka Jerrys) were effectively cut off from their supply lines. They had to make due with what they had, hence they Jerry-rigged solutions to problems.

• No. This is from the OED - That jerry-builder and jerry-built originated in some way from the name Jerry is probable; but the statement made in a letter to the newspapers in Jan. 1884, that they commemorate the name of a building firm on the Mersey, has on investigation not been confirmed. The earliest example yet found is that of jerry-built 1869. SemperBlotto 11:45, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

From entry (anon contributor):

sorry this isn't PC but I grew up in post WWII era of fading anti-Japanese propaganda. I had the sense that "jerry" was slang for "Japanese" as it was general propaganda that "made in Japan" was synonymous with "poorly made, of low quality".

@SemperBlotto: Care to give a citation backing up your claim? Even if "jerry-built" was used to refer to a certain building firm's work, it certainly wouldn't have been intended to imply shoddily made (its current meaning) - quite the opposite, I'd expect. Its etymology should explain how its meaning came to be reversed. The most logical explanation is that the original word never came into common use at all, and the present word is in fact a derivation of the word "jerry-rig".--Clone53421 16:26, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

@anon contributor: Linking 'jerry-built' to the Japanese makes no sense. During the Second World War, 'jerry' and 'jerries' were slang terms for the Germans, not the Japanese. In any case, the first recorded use of 'jerry-built' dates from much earlier. As a child I was told that 'jerry-built' was a reference to a Liverpool building firm run by two brothers named Jerry, but it now seems that this is apocryphal, or at least unprovable. A connection to the naval term 'jury', as in 'jury-rigged' -- meaning an improvised, temporary solution -- is possible, but when referring to non-nautical construction, the term always seems to be 'jerry-built', never 'jury-built'. Slamwp (talk) 14:19, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Seems to me that it refers to neither Germans nor Japanese, because those nicknames did not exist in the 1800's. In WW1 the Germans were sometimes called Fritz but not Jerry. And the Japanese were not on anyone's radar in England before 1890.

The probable derivation is a pejorative reference to a bodgy builder who was so poor at his trade that he went out of business and into oblivion long ago, but not before he'd made a few colossal and notorious blunders in the building game.

Etymology

Here is the source for the new edits: jerry-built: 1869, English dialect jerry "bad, defective," perhaps a pejorative use of the male nickname Jerry (a popular form of Jeremy), or from nautical slang jury "temporary," which came to be used of all sorts of makeshift and inferior objects (see jury (adj.)). Source: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=jerry-built 152.7.4.65 21:12, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

• Named after a London builder called Jeremiah: Names: And Their Meaning, a Book for the Curious (1891), Leopold Wagner, Putnam's (New York) Unwin (London). Rich Farmbrough, 09:55, 17 October 2024 (UTC).