Jerry vs. Gerry

At times I've had my doubts, but I think it's clear to me now that not any of my thousands of readers is a nit-picker. Thank God, because a dedicated, well-meaning blogger has enough hurdles to leap as it is. I refer to my post of a few days ago concerning the ramifications of having a Father Nature/Earth instead of a Mother one. In my haste to communicate such weighty thoughts I used the word gerryrig. Thankfully, no one called me on it, but nevertheless, I'm here to beg forgiveness; there is no such word. Having never written it before, and probably rarely if ever speaking the word, my incompetence with it was obvious. Sure enough, the next day in reading something, I came across the word jerry-rig, which I believe is the correct spelling. Interestingly enough (to me, at least) I say "believe" because in researching the word, all I came up with was jerry-built, which means "cheaply and shoddily built," which was the meaning I was going after with my gerryrig faux pas. Nobody seems to know where jerry-built came from: some poor Jerry, a would-be handyman with imagination and no chops, probably rigged up something, showed it to some smart-ass, and forever was stained with the perjorative term. From there I guess it was a quick leap to combine jury-rigging with jerry-built and hence jerry-rig.

Anyway, the whole experience got me thinking of guys named Jerry or Gerry. Now I'm sure there are plenty of boys out there named Jerome or Gerald these days, but I'd be willing to bet not many of them go by Jerry or Gerry. Just doesn't sound like a 21st Century kid's name, Jerry or Gerry. What really interests me, though, is the difference between a Jerry and a Gerry. Truth be told, and I'm not trying to justify my misspelling, but Jerry seems (I was going to write "sounds" which would really make no sense) like someone who would actually be quite handy with building things, whereas Gerry would be more of a destroyer of things. "Jerry spent all week building the cutest clubhouse, then Gerry came over all drunk and trashed the place in five minutes." Read that quote juxtaposing the names and it doesn't make any sense, does it? Jerry is slim, sensible, dependable, and, for some reason I can't explain, profuse with body hair; Gerry is stout, raucous, nearly hairless, and a helluva lot of fun. Jerry makes a name for himself (Garcia, above) while Gerry makes a scene and is quickly forgotten (Cooney, above). I'd love to do a test and ask women if they would pefer to go on a blind date with a guy named Jerry or a guy named Gerry. I'm sure you could tell a lot about the women who go for either one--just what, I don't know, but I bet the results would be pretty conclusive.

And just what would be the qualities of something that was tom-rigged or dave-rigged or sam-rigged or God forbid, dan-rigged? I'd take my chances on the sam-rigged.

Finally, the word gerrymander. Now this makes sense: Jerry builds/rigs, Gerry manders. "What the hell is that nearly hairless stout guy doing out there, Martha?" "Oh, that's just Gerry. He's mandering, as usual." Here's where it gets really interesting. Gerrymander (the practice of carving up strangely shaped voting districts for the benefit of one party vs. another) comes from a 19th Century Massachusetts governor by the name of Elbridge Gerry. Gotta believe the name Elbridge didn't even make it into the 20th, let alone the 21st century; I'd take Jerry or Gerry hands down over Elbie any day. And the -mander? From salamander, as in the shape of the cockeyed districts old Elbridge drew up. Now that's a word: gerrymander. Must use it more in my everyday language. "Say Bill, why don't you gerrymander yourself over to the bar and buy us another round?" "Great peas, grandma, wouldya mind gerrymandering them back to me for seconds?" "Hey Jerry, gas up that jitney you jerry-built and let's gerrymander over to Gerry's man-cave before the keg gets warm."

I'm sorry. It's been raining a lot here lately. I promise to get out more in the near future.