| 释义 |
jerkwater U.S.|ˈdʒɜːkˌwɔːtə(r)|
[f. jerk v.1]
In full, jerkwater train. A train on a branch railway (see quot. 1945). Also attrib.
1878F. H. Hart Sazerac Lying Club 16, I wish I may be run over by a two-horse jerk-water if there was a sage-hen in sight. 1905Dialect Notes III. 84 The St. Paul branch is a jerkwater railroad. Ibid., Jerkwater (train), train on a branch railway. ‘Has the jerkwater come in yet?’ 1909Sat. Even. Post 15 May 9/3 The farther along Thorpe got in the list the more disgusted he became with the prospect of living on jerk-water trains. 1920Bulletin 22 June 10/1 This Oriental who, with perfect self-possession..descended from the jerk⁓water train carrying a modern suitcase. 1926J. Black You can't Win xx. 303, I followed the pay-roll aboard the jerkwater train that carried it to the waiting miners. 1941Sun (Baltimore) 7 Mar. 12/7 In the early days of railroads the small boilers of the locomotives required frequent refilling, and water tanks were very few. Every train crew carried a leather bucket on a long rope with which they ‘jerked water’ from the streams along their track. As locomotives increased in size the small ‘jerk-water’ engines were relegated to branch-line service. Today no train crew carries a bucket, but the name ‘jerk water’ still sticks and has become part of our national heritage of American slang. 1945J. L. Marshall Santa Fe, Railroad that built an Empire 68 The Santa Fe was the Jerkwater Line—because train crews, when the water got low, often had to stop by a creek, form a bucket brigade and jerk water from the stream to fill the tender tank.
b. Used attrib. or as adj. in sense ‘small, insignificant, inferior’. colloq.
1897Chicago Tribune 25 July 15/2 John J. Ingalls regards the Swiss Mission as a jerkwater job, and would not take it if it were offered to him. 1911H. S. Harrison Queed xviii. 225 The spring found West stronger and more contented with his lot as president of a jerkwater college. 1923J. Dos Passos Streets of Night 130 Perkinville, a little jerkwater town back in South Dakota. 1936Jrnl. Genetic Psychol. XLIX. 492 It was one of those jerkwater towns that have one lawyer, one drug store and no traffic cops. 1950Blesh & Janis They all played Ragtime (1958) 3 Vaudeville teams—from the jerkwater acts to specialists like Ben Harney. 1970R. Lockridge Twice Retired (1971) v. 68 It won't be easy for him to get another job if he's fired... Maybe at some jerkwater college at half what he's getting now. |