"jerry" in ADS-L Digest--(third try)

[Gerald Cohen]

Mark,
   A few moments ago I sent a message to ads-l in reply to your
message below, but it's not turning up on my machine. Maybe the
machine thinks the duplication of my message is somehow spam. Anyway,
here's a third try now; this time I'll print the item as a quotation
and maybe it will go through.

Best. -- Gerald


 From Mark Mandel:
>To quote Gerald Cohen from ADS-L Digest - 24 Dec 2003 to 25 Dec 2003
>(#2003-359):
>
>Date:    Thu, 25 Dec 2003 13:47:44 -0600
>From:    "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at UMR.EDU>
>Subject: "jerry" (aware); was: Re: "Jerry to the old jazz" (June 1913)
>
>LS0tLS1PcmlnaW5hbCBNZXNzYWdlLS0tLS0gDQpGcm9tOiBBbWVyaWNhbiBEaWFsZWN0IFNvY2ll
>dHkgb24gYmVoYWxmIG9mIERvdWdsYXMgRy4gV2lsc29uIA0KU2VudDogVGh1IDEyLzI1LzIwMDMg
>
>... and so on. Did this encryption appear just in the digest, or did it
>also happen in the individual post? And what did he *say*?
>
>-- Mark A. Mandel
>    Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania


At 10:24 AM -0600 12/26/03, Gerald Cohen wrote:
>Here's a second try (sent directly from my Macintosh; evidently when
>I send messages via my wife's on-cable Gateway computer, some
>recipients receive them in garbled form.)
>
>Gerald Cohen
>
>
>Thread-Topic:      Re: "Jerry to the old jazz" (June 1913)
>Thread-Index: AcPLEaAT3Ra0EI07RUmDSiVdvK2xJAADGqMF
>Date:         Thu, 25 Dec 2003 13:47:44 -0600
>Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>From: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at umr.edu>
>Subject:      "jerry" (aware); was: Re: "Jerry to the old jazz" (June 1913)
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
>-----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"]?
>
>******
>
>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