“To make the bloody thing talk the way I do when I’m on a verbal roll, in my idioms and rhythms.” -Gary Lucas

As any immigrant to an English-speaking country can tell you; although English is not systemically difficult to grasp, its rules and exceptions are so at odds with each other that it is a wonder we can call it a system at all. Though it’s pretty common, I still love the quote:

“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”
–James D. Nicoll

I love English. I think it’s very confusing and convoluted and altogether a lot of fun to study. So, in the spirit of my native language, I decided to research and explain a few common phrases, because why the hell not? I will explain each term, give my initial based-on logic assumptions, and then give the actual origin.

Gaslighting:

Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse in which the abuser leads their victim to believe they are losing their mind. They may either simply deny that some occurrence or interaction ever occurred, or they may go about the more classical example of making small changes in the victims surroundings. Regardless of the methods, the process is at best disconcerting for the victim.

Quick assumptions

Gaslighting was a hard one, though the two words “gas” and “light” being used together certainly led me to believe this term originated in recent history. The best I could come up with was that, perhaps pilot lights on gas stoves, ovens, and water heaters used to go out fairly easily, in essence tricking the owner into thinking they could use their appliance.

Actual origin

The term refers to the 1938 stage play Gas Light (known as Angel Street in the United States). The play’s main character uses systematic psychological manipulation on his wife in order to convince her that she was crazy. The title refers to one of the abuser’s methods was to dim the gas lights of the house (I wasn’t totally wrong!). The play coined the term, despite its name change in the US.

Jury Rig (Jury Rigging):

Jury rigging refers to the act of repairing an object using only the objects close at hand. The makeshift repairs are likely not as functional as the original item or a true repair.

Quick Assumptions

Taking “jury rig’ to mean “using your available resources to achieve the best result,” I defined the words as best I knew how and figured it had to refer to the process of stacking the jury of a legal proceeding in order to have the best outcome. Essentially, the prosecutor or defendant could “rig the jury” with what was at hand.

Actual Origin

The term is nautical, meaning an improvised repair to the mast and yards in the event that the original mast was lost. “Rig” or “rigging” refers to the ropes and structure used to control the sails. “Jury,” on the other hand, is nearly unrecognizable for most people nowadays. The adjectival use of “jury” refers to “makeshift or temporary”, and dates back to 1616 (though the work was edited again, and the author John Smith didn’t get it published as “jury” until 1624.) There are several theories for “jury” in this sense, including: the Latin adjutare (“to aid”) via Old French ajurie (“help or relief”), and a corruption of the term “joury mast,” which was a temporary mast used as a spare should the main mast be compromised.

Jerry Built:

This phrase is often confused with “jury rigged,” and usually is combined into “jerry rigged.” Though for a long time “Jerry rig” was not accepted, it has since been incorporated as an alternate for both the previous phrases. Where “jury rig” is a makeshift repair, “Jerry built” refers to something that is poorly constructed.

Quick Assumptions

Honestly the only use of the word “Jerry” I knew of was a derogatory slang for German soldiers and citizens used in World War II. I assumed that since “Jerry built” is similarly derogatory, it was used as a way to describe something of German make during the 1940’s onward. This didn’t seem right, as for most of my life German engineering has had the opposite reputation.

Actual Origin

Though the phrase’s actual inception is uncertain, it seems to have arisen from 1830’s Liverpool. This may be due to “…the cheap, flimsy constructs of a Mr. Jerry of the Jerry Bros. of Liverpool.” It has also been speculated to refer to other poor constructions, including: the crumbling walls of Jericho, the prophet Jeremiah who foretold decay, and (my personal favorite) the gypsy word gerry, meaning “excrement.”

Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about some common idiomatic phrases! 

“I read good. I was an English major.” -P. J. O’Rourke

If you’re a native English speaker and you cannot be bothered to even try with your own language, well then I don’t know how you expect anyone to listen to what you have to say.

I have previously written about the linguistic labyrinth that is English, but let’s be honest: that was more from the “I’d hate to try to learn this as a second language” perspective. 

So this is the first installment of my coming work, Speak Properly, You Asshole, from a chapter titled: “This is so easy you should be ashamed.”

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First off, we’re going to tackle: “they’re,” “there,” and “their.”

This one drives me up the wall. It’s really not that hard, and each one has a different function. They cannot be used interchangeably. We’ll start easy:

• “They’re” means “they are.” It’s a contraction. If you are referring to “them” and an action, you need the contraction (look, it rhymes and is pedantic!)
• “Their” is a pronoun, and is the possessive case of “they.” If what you’re talking about does not belong to “them,” it’s not gonna be “theirs.”
• “There” is not as cut-and-dry. It has many uses, but notably, it cannot be used in place of the others. So if “they’re” and “their” don’t work, use “there.”

Look, we’re already done! Now let’s move to: “It’s” and “its.”

• “It’s” means “it is.” If “it is” doesn’t fit, you don’t need the apostrophe, so use “its.”

Holy crap that’s really all there is to it. Seriously, if you mess up that one you just need to take a minute and see how quickly I explained it.

Last one: “Two,” “too,” and “to.”

• “Two” is a noun, and a number. If you do not want to express a specific number, don’t use “two.”
• “Too” is an adverb commonly used to express a quantity, excess, or agreement. It’s the only one of the three with more than one vowel, which is still not a good enough excuse to confuse it with “two.”
• “To” is preposition, and not used to express quantity in any form.

There you go! We’re all done. And remember, if you mess up “two” and “too,” this is how stupid you may look:

“I try to keep an open mind about everything except grammar, spelling, and punctuation.” – Unknown

I am a firm believer that everyone should speak more than one language. I know that most of the world speaks English, and that English-speaking countries and people have an inherent advantage in that respect, but I still think it’s really important to learn another. A working knowledge of someone else’s language gives you an insight into their culture. You don’t have to be fluent, but understanding enough to have a conversation is vital to seeing other people as real human beings*. Someone’s English might be broken and halting, but they will sound like a poet in their native language. Or they’ll sound like an idiot in both, but if you don’t speak their mother tongue you’ll never know.

On the other hand there I know learning a language can be frustrating. I’ve learned a few, and there are always little things that make me want to bang my head on the desk, scream, or maybe set fire to a few dictionaries and/or the people who wrote them and listen to them scream instead**.

For example, in German, words have genders just like in Spanish, French, Catalan, Portuguese and Italian. In German, however, there doesn’t seem to be any freaking logic behind it, and in the words of my German-major friend****, “You kind of just have to memorize them.” What the crap is that? I’m used to memorizing exceptions to the rule, but this aspect of German seems to have no rules whatsoever.

I also have a beef with Portuguese. Specifically, the words for grandmother and grandfather. They’re allophones, which means they’re spelled the same but one of the phonemes (sounds) is slightly different. The words are literally ‘avó’ and ‘avô’ respectively, meaning they’re practically indistinguishable. My Portuguese instructor actually pronounced them, asked “You can hear the difference, right?” and no, we couldn’t hear the difference. Because they’re really stupidly similar.

But I can console myself with the knowledge that I grew up with English, which isn’t the hardest language to learn but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t have a bunch of weird crap thrown in.
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*= Oooh, deep.

**= “Well that escalated quickly,” you*** say.

***= This might actually be you.

****= You know who you are.

The Comedy of Errors

English is incredibly confusing. There are two too many similar sounding words to make sense of anything. You can write down the right rights, which you had had previously. You can produce produce, object to the object, subject a subject, refuse refuse, and present a present in the present. And one of my other favorite causes for confusion: Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. For at least four more, just search “English language is confusing” on Google, and I am pretty sure no one will disagree. In fact, here are a few of my go-to quotes about the English language:

“If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.” –Doug Larson (on fuzzy punctuation use.)

“If a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.” –G. K. Chesterton (on why grandmothers might have deserved it.)

“ ‘I am’ is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that ‘I do’ is the longest sentence?” –George Carlin (probably not even during a performance, just being grumpy.)

 

I love these quotes because I was an English major and, aside from crippling debt and a healthy dose of cynicism, wordplay is all you’re allowed to have afterward. But imagine yourself as a non-native speaker, and trying to understand all of the differences there. And what’s above is only the tip of the iceberg.

 

English, with all of its quirks, is very close to my heart. However, growing up as a native speaker of one of the harder languages to learn in the western world has given me an inherent advantage. Along those lines, I’ll leave you with my new favorite quote:

 

“Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language.” -H. Jackson Brown, Jr.