What do you call an improvised rig?

[doctorbill]

Is it "jury-rigged" or "jerry-rigged" ?

[JoeRobertJr]

I found this interesting from dictionary.com:
"Jury-rigged means something was assembled quickly with the materials on hand. Jerry-built means it was cheaply or poorly built. Jerry-rigged is a variant of jury-rigged, and it may have been influenced by jerry-built. While some people consider it to be an incorrect version of jury-rigged, it’s widely used, especially in everyday speech."

"in the nautical world, jury means “makeshift” or “temporary.” The origin of this jury isn’t exactly known."

[Bill Seal]

According to Merriam Webstar:


"Jury-rig comes from the adjective jury, meaning "improvised for temporary use especially in an emergency," or "makeshift." It's a 15th century term that comes from the Middle English jory, as known (back then, anyway) in the phrase "jory sail," meaning "improvised sail."

Google is your friend

[doctorbill]

I do see from online that the "correct" term should be "Jury-rigged" but I seem to find in common parlance most people saying "jerry-rigged" for broad usage, and, as according to dictionary.com:

"While some people consider it to be an incorrect version of jury-rigged, it’s widely used, especially in everyday speech."

So I didn't want to be the pedantic one if the common usage in sailing these days is "jerry-rigged"

[Narfi]

I always thought it was 'jerry' pronounced 'jury' and referred to the Germans from WWI or II. (also interesting because other than this I typically think of the German stereotype of machining precision)

Never thought of it much, but here is some more info for you,

https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2...ry-rigged.html

[StuM]

Originally Posted by JoeRobertJr

I found this interesting from dictionary.com:
"Jury-rigged means something was assembled quickly with the materials on hand. Jerry-built means it was cheaply or poorly built.

That's the way I've always understood it.
A jury-rig may be "jerry-rigged" or jerry-built", if not done carefully, but it can also be well constructed


Calling a "jury-rig", a "jerry-rig" is an insult to be creator as it implies slipshod (q.v.) work

[JPA Cate]

In the 1995 BOAC singlehand race, our friend, Alan Nebauer sailed --under jury rig--from before he got to Cape Horn, around it, and to the Falklands, where a replacement mast was awaiting him, courtesy the RAF. He had used his two spinnaker poles (which had survived the dismasting event) and made a sort of A-frame jury rig, and continued on. Pretty cool, imo.

[psk125]

The poll seems to conflate two expressions that mean different things - adding to the confusion. Variations in usage may be based on where the speaker is from. Like the difference between paper bags (east coast US) and sacks (midwest US). Better questions might be cutlass bearing or cutless bearing? (Surprising answer here: https://www.seattleyachts.com/news/i...utless-bearing). Kicking strap or boom vang? Sometimes one answer is right, sometimes they all are, and other times, none are. Depends on the question.

[smith8273]

It's what most would call my rig currently...