Jerkwater Town

[Garson O'Toole]

Evan Morris wrote:
> An interesting and plausible alternate explanation for the phrase, at
> odds with the OED.
>
> http://verbmall.blogspot.com/2008/05/jerkwater-town.html

Michael Quinion discussed water troughs between rails at the World
Wide Words website here:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/trains.htm

[Begin excerpt]
Some writers on language, and some dictionaries, say that train crews
carried buckets attached to ropes which they used to jerk water out of
the streams they passed. A calculation (for which I’m indebted to John
Urban) suggests this is hardly a practical way of filling even a small
locomotive boiler. It seems more probable that it referred to a system
by which water troughs were fitted between the rails from which a
locomotive could scoop up supplies without stopping (jerkwater is
first recorded in 1878, while the troughs, called track pans in the
US, date from 1870 in that country).
[End excerpt]

Bill Mullins posted to the ADS list in 2005 some interesting cites for
jerk-water in 1865, 1878, and 1890.
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ADS-L;aUtTCw;200506171709430500C
Short link: http://goo.gl/01YIH


Here is a citation dated 1871 that may be relevant. (I thought I
posted it months ago when I found it, but I don't see it in the
archive.)

Cite: 1871 October 21, Pomeroy's Democrat, Pecking Here and There, GNB
Page 4, Column 6, Chicago, Illinois. (GenealogyBank)

[Begin excerpt]
An inventive genius has patented what is called a "jerk-water," by the
use of which engines on railroads can be furnished with water without
stopping. The Hudson River Railroad has adopted it. We have often
wondered why railroad companies did not station men along the line
with syringes to fill the tender, instead of stopping so often, but we
suppose, it is too late now to get a patent on, what we thought.
[End excerpt]

Garson

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