appletheclown wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
babybird wrote:
I don't think the term jerk is used too much in England.
the term is a shortened form of "jerkoff" and is mildly vulgar in its original meaning from which it has drifted. a more appropriate substitute term for today would be "Machiavellian" or "alpha."
No it doesn't. Alpha is a greek number 1, why would jerk mean a greek number one? We are not wolves. Jerk is basically a word for a***hole, or jack-arse. If human males can be alpha's, then we'd call them alpha's.
but we ARE [akin to] wolves. we are the human animal, the naked ape. jerks [
present definition more akin to bully] ARE the ones in the lions' share of leadership positions, that is precisely how they got to be in those positions, by being Machiavellian and outmaneuvering folks encumbered with common decency/morals.
original meaning From Etymonline.com:
jerk (n.)
1935, "tedious and ineffectual person," Amer.Eng. carnival slang, perhaps from jerkwater town (1878), where a steam locomotive crew had to take on boiler water from a trough or a creek because there was no water tank. This led 1890s to an adj. use of jerk as "inferior, insignificant." Probably also infl. by verb jerk off, slang for "perform male masturbation" (first recorded 1916). Jerk off (n.) as an emphatic form of jerk (n.) first attested 1968.