whack 'whacked'

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>2.  "jack off"
>
>>  I doubt
>>"jack off" from "jack" = "man" (where are "man off", "bloke off", "guy
>>off", "tom off", "joe off"?);  I suspect "jack" is basically like
>>"jack up
>>the car to change the tire"...
>
>...

>the failure of generalization, to other nouns generically denoting men,
>would be no surprise.

Perhaps I was too elliptical. I would not assert that one would expect all
or many of the conceivable analogous terms to appear. I guess my position
would be that since "jack off" from the verb "jack" seems natural (with
several analogous synonyms [all from verbs at very least]) it would not be
sensible (without a good paper-trail or strong supporting argument of some
type) to postulate instead "jack off" from a noun (="man") (given that NONE
of its likely analogues occurs) ... EVEN if one found the noun etymon
intuitively likely otherwise (which I myself don't).

>   consider "jerk off", involving what almost
>everyone agrees involves the contact verb "jerk" (an obvious figure,
>parallel to "beat off" and "toss off" and "whack off" [all, i believe,
>dialectally restricted]).

All but "toss" were routine in my childhood environment ("toss" very rare,
archaic maybe) ... also "pound" and "stroke" at least.

>there are plenty of excellent candidates for
>a parallel development ....
>
>... certainly none of them has been
>*generally* conventionalized in demotic english.  that fact doesn't in
>the slightest undercut the proposal that "jerk off" is historically
>derived from the verb "jerk".

I agree ... but what if the proposal were (in analogy to the above
"jack"="man" etymology) that "jerk off" is based on a noun "jerk" meaning a
stupid or offensive man? Then I would object (as above) that this etymology
doesn't seem likely, and that the ancestor is probably the verb, by analogy
to "beat", "whack", etc.

-- Doug Wilson