jerk = 'stupid person' (1928)

[Jonathan Lighter]

To my ear, McClintock unmistakably sings "Turk," just as he did when I first
heard the recording many years ago.

There's no additional context for HDAS's 1919 "jerk" except to say that the
guy with the nickname was real, had passed a U.S. army physical, and was
then sent overseas. His words suggest goofiness, though it is impossible to
specify just what kind. But I think we can reasonably rule out any gross
medical condition.

I included the cite without brackets partly for that reason and partly
because my grandfather (b. 1884), whose favorite insult this was, had
assured me in the late '50s that he'd been using it from long before
the First World War. (In fact, "jerk" and  - rarely - "son of a
bitch" were practically his *only* insults - so it was deeply ingrained.)

If "jerk" had had any specific vulgar connotations to him, he certainly
didn't say so, nor would he have. He grew up in Manhattan in a
lower-middle-class neighborhood.

This is another ex. of a word that may not have gotten into print for a long
time because it had long been considered indecent.

JL

On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 2:41 AM, Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: jerk = 'stupid person' (1928)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
> > But some say it's "Turk".
> >
> > At YouTube: supposedly the 1928 McClintock recording:
> >
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKk_kPmAk4
> >
> > ... wherein I believe I hear "Turk".
> >
> > Why "Turk"? Farmer & Henley et al. give "Turk" = "cruel hard-hearted
> > man" or so. There are other possibilities.
>
> I think you present an excellent hypothesis with your fine ears, Doug.
> There is some support in these raw matches before 1950 in Google Books
> which all contain Turk. (Apparently, the lyrics use "that" instead of
> "who".)
>
> An introduction to economics
> Clyde G. Chenoweth - 1941 - 677 pages - Snippet view
> Oh, I'm bound to go Where there ain't no snow, Where they hung the
> Turk That invented work, In the Big Rock Candy Mountains. 1 From a
> version by Harry McClintock, copyrighted by Villa Moret Co., San
> Francisco. ...
>
> Railroad avenue: great stories and legends of American railroading
> Freeman H. Hubbard - 1945 - 374 pages - Snippet view
> ... No axes, saws or picks; Where they hung the Turk That invented
> work In the Big Rock Candy Mountains. Haywire Mac brings us back for a
> moment to the subject of clearances. Mac likes to tell about the
> boomers he used to know, ..
>
> The poets' world: an anthology of English poetry
> James Reeves - 1948 - 304 pages - Snippet view
> ... goin' to stay where you sleep all day, Where they hung the Turk
> that invented work, In the Big Rock Candy Mountains. Alexander the
> Great FOUR men stood by the grave of a man, The grave of Alexander the
> Proud: They sang words without ...
>
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