Geek Post

I am excited to debut a new periodic post category, the "Geek Post." Every now and then, I will present something that might not have anything to do with photography and nothing to do with anything but geeking out. I have no idea if anyone else is interested in this or if they will be scared of the crazy things I find interesting, but in honor of conversations this week on the "geek" topic, we all have our geek side or inner geek. (This is also a diversion post as I have been tagged with the "5 things meme" by Jeremias Paul and have a lot of work to do too this weekend, like look at 1500 images to finish jurying Critical Mass.)

So...I was double checking one of my artist's statements this week and she used the term "jury-rigged," which I thought was a typo and supposed to be "jerry-rigged." After poking around online, I found out I was wrong (Update, apparently I am one of the few that thought this. Funny...but we all have these things stuck in our heads that are wrong. Go on, you know it's true!) I found this great site by Paul Brians that explains common errors in English. For those who are chomping at the bit, here is the distinction between "JERRY-BUILT/JURY-RIGGED":

Although their etymologies are obscure and their meanings overlap, these are two distinct expressions. Something poorly built is “jerry-built.” Something rigged up temporarily in a makeshift manner with materials at hand, often in an ingenious manner, is “jury-rigged.” “Jerry-built” always has a negative connotation, whereas one can be impressed by the cleverness of a jury-rigged solution. Many people cross-pollinate these two expressions and mistakenly say “jerry-rigged” or “jury-built.”