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Post by Stil on Jan 7, 2006 23:06:06 GMT 7
A couple of weeks ago I took a few of my Chinese colleagues out for dinner along with an American friend of mine visiting from Guangzhou. At some point the two us were chatting and speaking quite quickly and using some American slang. (Filthy language but he doesn't speak Canuck) He mentioned that something of his was broken and I responded that he could 'MacGyver' it together by doing 'x' and 'y'. (Maybe some of you remember the TV series MacGyver, good 80's cheese. MacGyver could fix anything with an elastic band and a dirty look.) One of my colleagues asked me what MacGyver means. I told her that it means 'to fix something without the proper tools or parts'. I had drank a few beers and 'forgot' to mention that it was slang.
Well today I ran into a friend in the city close to my town. He asked me if I could help him MacGyver his computer as it wasn't working. I asked him where he learned the word (he has nothing to do with my school) and he said his little sister taught it to him during the New Year's holiday. She works in Changsha (3 hours away form me) and learned it from a friend in University there.
I don't want to take all the blame credit for this so will anybody here admit to teaching the term MacGyver to their students or colleagues? Please!
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Post by Lotus Eater on Jan 8, 2006 0:01:24 GMT 7
Not guilty Your Honour. I would have taught them to "bodgy" it up.
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Post by Mr Nobody on Jan 8, 2006 7:31:03 GMT 7
Yeah, I teach 'bodge' too. A fine old english word, from the 'bodgers' iterinerant workers travelling around doing casual work, mostly with a portable lathe run on a springy branch, fixing furniture with bits of roughly shaped wood. A 'bodgy' job is one where the bodger has obviously fixed it by putting in a peice that is decidedly lower in quality to the majority of the furniture.
Tinkers were the other kind of itinerant worker, mostly working in metals.
Looks like this is your fault, stil.
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Crippler
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Beware the conspiracy!
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Post by Crippler on Jan 8, 2006 9:45:40 GMT 7
I use "jerry-rig" or "jury-rig" to mean the same thing!
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Post by Stil on Jan 8, 2006 10:00:33 GMT 7
Hmmmm, maybe I will start activly teaching this. It would be nice to here it from some official sometime, like the police saying not to worry about my visa they'll just MacGyver it.
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Ruth
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Post by Ruth on Jan 8, 2006 10:55:41 GMT 7
Here's something official, Stil. Sorry, no help on the visa though.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
jury-rig
SYLLABICATION: ju·ry-rig
PRONUNCIATION: jr-rg
TRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: ju·ry-·rigged, ju·ry-·rig·ging, ju·ry-·rigs
To rig or assemble for temporary emergency use; improvise: The survivors of the wreck jury-rigged some fishing gear.
ETYMOLOGY: From jury-rig, jury-rigging, improvised rigging on a ship, modeled on jury-mast, temporary mast, perhaps ultimately from Old French ajurie, help, from aider, to help. See aid.
And from Wikipedia: MacGyver can also be used as a verb meaning to fix, repair, rig, solve, build, ...
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Post by Mr Nobody on Jan 8, 2006 11:07:17 GMT 7
I don't use jury-rig the same as bodgy. Something jury rigged is something cobbled together out of neccessity, since one isn't available or has never been made before. For example, all inventions are jury-rigged the first time, stuff like that. It might look like a mess, but it works. To me, bodgy is something that is messy, works maybe, but probably not as well as it should, and ideally is temporary.
Subtle difference to me, with an overlap, of course, but there is a difference.
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Crippler
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Post by Crippler on Jan 8, 2006 11:14:27 GMT 7
I don't use jury-rig the same as bodgy. Something jury rigged is something cobbled together out of neccessity, since one isn't available or has never been made before. For example, all inventions are jury-rigged the first time, stuff like that. It might look like a mess, but it works. To me, bodgy is something that is messy, works maybe, but probably not as well as it should, and ideally is temporary. Subtle difference to me, with an overlap, of course, but there is a difference. Like using panty hose as a substitute for a fan belt or maybe baling twine. Have used both at one time or the other to get me home. |
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Post by Mr Nobody on Jan 8, 2006 11:27:45 GMT 7
Yeah, although maybe it would be bodgy if you left it until it wore out.
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Post by OZgronk on Jan 8, 2006 16:04:26 GMT 7
Amongst my proudest achievements in my old job of troubleshooting problems in newspaper electronic equipment, was being able to get gear running again despite having no spare parts and being so far out in the bush that the nearest Radio Shack or Dick Smith shops were several hours away by plane.
Newspapers have deadlines and owners who live by them get very panicky when deadlines are approaching and a late newspaper is going to cost them a lot of money in compensation to advertisers.
Scouring small towns to find parts that will do the job until a more permanent fix could be made was always fun when an editor is fuming, just like you see on TV.
A memorable time was in a town called Longreach in Central Queensland (and the birthplace of QANTAS) and it was there that the only stuff remotely resembling electronic parts were at the local telephone exchange where I managed to build some circuitry from some very old bits and pieces that came out of an old exchange.
But the local telephone tech was nonplussed with my efforts as he showed me what he had done for all the good citizens of Longreach in order that they may watch TV.
(At that stage about 10 years ago, no TV transmissions were in that part of the bush, the locals only had VCR tapes to watch and the local shop only had a few dozen to choose from so it was bleak indeed).
Well this enterprising bloke had built a little transmitter, and hooked it into the satellite signal feed that the TV networks use, and each night he would transmit programs to everyone in town. I noticed later that indeed all the TV aerials were pointing to the Telephone exchange in the middle of town.
As he could only transmit one program at a time, he became the town's program director and would choose what he though the townsfolk would like to watch!
Of course what he was doing was highly illegal, but who was going to dob him in, and how would the Government look if they went and charged someone when they were unable to supply TV but a little bloke could!
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Post by Mr Nobody on Jan 9, 2006 0:37:24 GMT 7
Well, if they caught him, and prosecuted him in that town, then, instead of jury rigged, it would be a rigged jury.
I crack me up.
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Post by Stil on Jan 9, 2006 9:27:35 GMT 7
Don't worry, we can MacGyver you back together |
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Post by Mr Nobody on Jan 9, 2006 9:59:32 GMT 7
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Ruth
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Post by Ruth on Jan 9, 2006 11:34:47 GMT 7
Great story OZgronk, and great laughs Mr. N and Stil.
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Post by OZgronk on Jan 9, 2006 22:18:19 GMT 7
There are truly some funny buggers in this place!
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Post by Nate M on Jan 10, 2006 1:11:22 GMT 7
In the city of Minneapolis there is an oddly large proportion of the population who take to using the greeting "howdy". I'm proud to accept any blame for it's introduction to the frigid North.
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Crippler
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Oooops!
Jan 10, 2006 10:00:43 GMT 7
Post by Crippler on Jan 10, 2006 10:00:43 GMT 7
There are truly some funny buggers in this place! We generally just call them weird, psychotic misfits!   |
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Newbs
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Post by Newbs on Jan 14, 2006 7:21:45 GMT 7
Oz correct me if I'm wrong, but that is essentially how cable started in the USA back in the sixties, or whatever. A group of people had poor reception, so they pooled resources and built a big antennae, with lots of splitters and cables. Thanks to their far sightedness and ingenuity we now have CNN and ESPN.
Thanks a million, guys.
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teleplayer
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Post by teleplayer on Jan 14, 2006 7:30:14 GMT 7
Oz correct me if I'm wrong, but that is essentially how cable started in the USA back in the sixties, or whatever. A group of people had poor reception, so they pooled resources and built a big antennae, with lots of splitters and cables. Thanks to their far sightedness and ingenuity we now have CNN and ESPN. Thanks a million, guys. Pretty close, Newbs. Actually it was a guy in Pennsylvania who had an appliance store. He was also the TV repair guy. The town was in a valley and had basically no reception. He put an antenna on a hill and cable fed the signal down to the town. TV sales went up big time. ESPN came from the fact that U. Connecticut wanted to send it's basketball games to it's alumna in New England. Turns out the coach had a friend who had transponder time on a satellite. The satellite's eye fed all of North America. Things happened, rent on Satcom time went up, a CBS Senior VP left with CBS head Paley saying "it'll never work" and hired a bunch of recent college media grads who lived on burgers and in cheap motels to send video feeds to their new "Sports network." Needless-to-say those same kids are now the retiring senior VPs of ESPN. And run-on sentences like that is why I'm not writing news copy!! |
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Ruth
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God's provisions are strategically placed along the path of your obedience.
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Post by Ruth on Jan 14, 2006 7:45:38 GMT 7
Much more interesting and informative than reading news copy. The things I learn here. Thanks guys.
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