Jerry-Built

Meaning: Built in a makeshift and insubstantial manner.

Origin: The phrase has been around since at least 1869, when it was defined in the Lonsdale Glossary:

“Jerry-built, slightly, or unsubstantially built.”

By 1901, the term began to be used figuratively - a sure sign of acceptance into the general language. For example, The Daily Chronicle, in August that year printed this opinion:

“In an age of jerry-built books it is refreshing to come across a volume that has taken forty years to compile.”

The derivation is unknown. What we do know is that the term has nothing to do with the UK slang term for German - Jerry/Gerry. This is of WWI origin and the citations above pre-date that. As always when a phrase’s origin is unknown people like to guess, so here goes. It is possible that the term derives from the slang term jerrycummumble or jerrymumble. This was defined in the 1811 version of Francis Grose’s Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue:

“JERRYCUMMUMBLE. To shake, towzle, or tumble about.”

Some other guesses, although none of them appear to have any substantiating evidence, place the origin as:

• The cheap, flimsy constructs of Jerry Brothers - a Liverpool building firm. (Note: I’ve not been able to confirm the existence of this company).
• The walls of Jericho which, as everyone knows ‘came tumbling down’.
• A corruption of ‘jury-rig’ - although if that were the case we might expect to see some printed reference to ‘jury-built’ or ‘jerry-rigged’. The former is unknown and citations of the latter all date from the 20th century.

Source: The Phrase Finder: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/211600.html

I came across info on this very interesting place in The Bronx: Wave Hill, that may work for Culm.

It is one of the most famous hills in the bronx, although not the exact “culm” (which of course is Fieldston Hill) but there is a botanical garden at the top with apparently fabulous views of the Hudson.

More information here:

http://www.wavehill.org

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_Hill_(New_York)

The Georgics, published in 29 BC, is the second major work by the Latin poet Virgil. Its ostensible subject is rural life and farming and the work is generally categorized as a “didactic poem”.
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgics

Project Guttenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext95/geore10.txt

Excerpt from Virgil’s Georgic I:

“In early spring-tide, when the icy drip

Melts from the mountains hoar, and Zephyr’s breath

Unbinds the crumbling clod, even then ’tis time;

Press deep your plough behind the groaning ox,

And teach the furrow-burnished share to shine.

That land the craving farmer’s prayer fulfils,

Which twice the sunshine, twice the frost has felt;

Ay, that’s the land whose boundless harvest-crops

Burst, see! the barns.”

With reluctance and anticipation, I trudge down to the World Trade Center with my microphone and recorder to listen. I feel somewhat liberated and invisible without a camera, the sensation of witnessing a site with such a horrific story to tell shifts when my ears are responsible for leading the way. With all of the clutter of this new form of tragedy-tourism, I am trying to find a charged audile experience that will resonate. I record a grizzled, bearded man playing Auld Lang San from beginning to end, at the same time that a group of Midwestern tourists chat comfortably about the falling bodies they never saw.

Meet the Makers
Thursday, May 17 - 6:00 PM
The New York Public Library: Donnell Library Center
20 West 53rd Street - New York, NY - 10019
www.nypl.org - 212.621.0619

Filmmakers and multi-media artists Lynne Sachs and Susan Agliata will discuss their originally-conceived web-based, interactive project Abecedarium: NYC. An abecedarium is a book designed to teach the ABC’s; using this as a model, this interactive website is a semiotic exploration of NYC in the form of 26 one minute videos, and mounted on The New York Public Library’s web site. Ms. Sachs will also present and discuss some of her cine-essay works.

Recalling the mystery that the alphabet once was for all of us, Abecedarium: NYC uses animation and original video material to explore evocative relationships between words and their meanings. Inspired by the complex and dynamic history of books designed to teach the alphabet, Abecedarium: NYC encourages participants to reflect on the history, politics, and culture – both above and below ground — of New York City through the exploration of a series of 26 unfamiliar, yet intriguing, words and their definitions.

Funded by the New York State Council on the Arts.

Susan and I ascend by car and then by foot to the top of Staten Island today, over 400 feet above sea level! We are not far from the comfortable, Italianate homes of Staten Island. The trees are looming, and we feel exhilarated by the sense of accomplishment that comes from reaching this burrough’s culminant point! To our surprise and joy there is actually a small, wood sign designating Todt Hill as the highest point on the Eastern Seaboard below Maine. In pursuit of a NYC-specific visualization of this word, I am becoming much more aware of the topography of our city. Now when I am looking from the Brooklyn Bridge across the harbor to the telephone tower on Todt Hill, I am able to imagine the lush, verdant hilltop woods below.