Would you want to be a soda jerk or a soda clerk? The term soda jerk was a pun on soda clerk, the formal job title of the young male drugstore assistants who operated soda fountains. It was inspired by the "jerking" action the server would implement to drive the fountain handle back and forth when adding soda. That was in the 1030s and 1940s. Here's the article on the "lost lingo of New York City's Soda Jerks HERE.
It got me thinking about how anyone would want to be called a jerk rather than clerk. That's because, in contrast, a jerk is defined as a "contemptibly obnoxious person. " That was American slang that started showing up in the 1930s. It is thought it developed via "jerkwater' which dates from the 1860s and came to mean an insignificant or hick town. It evolved to "small-time, second-rate, mediocre" and was abbreviated to jerk, so was the start of "jerk" the obnoxious person.But what about "jerk chicken"? Jerk is a style of cooking native to Jamaica, and meat is dry-rubbed or wet marinated with hot spice. That word jerk comes from charqui, a Spanish term for jerked or dried meat. That's another world altogether and not to be considered with the clerks and jerks above. The original word "jerk" means a quick movement, and then the verb "jerk" meant to strike or lash, so that the noun became a stroke or lash. Both verb and noun are considered echoic - sounding like what it meant.
But what about the sexual slang aspects of the word? The grammarphobia.com article chronicles the word's sexual slang aspects through a lengthy history. It repeats the American reference to Alexander Portnoy in Philip Roth's novel Portnoy's Complaint, 1968, as the sexual verb was "so beloved of Alexander Portnoy". So when I looked through a lot of the "lost lingo" terms for types of sundaes, it seemed to me this might have been a part of the underground world of sexual slang. Being called a soda jerk might have been considered smirky and rebellious. When I look at the pictures of those teenage boys, this makes perfect sense.
What do you think?This wonderful painterly background makes this a pleasing floral portrait.