"jerry" (aware); was: Re: "Jerry to the old jazz" (June 1913)

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

-----Original Message----- 
From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Douglas G. Wilson 
Sent: Thu 12/25/2003 12:04 PM 
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "Jerry to the old jazz" (June 1913)

Synonyms: "hep"; "wise"; "next"; "jerry".

Whence "jerry"? Could it be "chary" [= "alert"]?

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I treated this item in my article "Jerry in Slang: 'A Watch'; Aware'"; in : Gerald Leonard Cohen, _Studies in Slang_, part V, (Frankfurt a. M: Peter Lang), 1997, pp. 143-146.  The gist of  the answer is that we start with "Jerry-come-tumble" (= a tumbler), which by a word-play on cant "tumble" (to understand) and shortening to just "jerry" becomes "jerry" (aware).

   Partridge's 1968 _Dictionary of  the Underworld_ comes as close as possible to the answer without actually getting it, by suggesting that "jerry" (aware) might have come from "jerrycummumble." Partridge should have selected "Jerry-come-tumble."

     A look at OED shows: "Jerry-come-tumble," "Jerry-go-nimble" (a tumbler, an antic, a performer (equestrian or other)) and "Jerrycummumble,"" Jerrymumble" (to shake or tumble about).

      As for the origin of "Jerry-come-tumble," the first quote in OED indicates that the tumbling was the fall in a hanging:  1823 SCOTT. _Quentin D. xiv, "I [A hangman] never quarrel with my customers--my jerry-come-tumbles, my merry dancers."

Gerald Cohen