I would go with “Christianed him down.”* It’s much more obnoxious, leaves the other person wondering if they got called on the racist carpet or just getting messed with.
IMHO Afro-rigging and Hebrewed someone down are virtually as bad as saying the real deal. Why not use jury rig and hard bargaining instead of painfully obvious euphemisms for some ugly words. Or at least get creative.
*Credit to Richard “Kinky” Big Dick Friedman, kosher cowboy, member of Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, mystery writer and former candidate for the Texas Governor.
My friends and I have always said “ghetto-rig,” and I have no idea where it came from. It’s hilarious though. Then again, I’ve never personally had much patience or concern for people who take this stuff very seriously. People nowadays wake up and want to be insulted by something. Anything will do.
Until this thread I had never heard ‘nigger-rig.’ Nor ‘afro-rig,’ nor ‘ghetto-rig.’
I have heard ‘jerry-rig,’ quite frequently. Didn’t think it had anything to do with Germans, though. I assumed it was a corruption of ‘jury-rig,’ which is the version I use and hear most commonly.
I have never heard “afro-rig” before, but if it did I’d put it right in the same camp as “nigger-rig,” although probably not right at that moment because if I heard it out of the blue it would probably take a bit before it sank in.
My guess is that the guy thinks he is using an innocuous expression that doesn’t really “mean” anything and would think it humorous that some people get so het up about it.
Does anyone else say “Mickey Mouse,” as a verb, for that situation? As in, “I might be able to Mickey Mouse something together.”
How Disney-ist of you! I wouldn’t say I might be able to MM something together. I would say “I might be able to Dept of Homeland Security something together. Where’s my duct tape?”
I’ve never heard of nigger rig or Afro rig. I have heard (and used) jerry-rigged. Jerry built seems to be British to me. Never heard of jury rig, either–and it sounds too muck like a rigging of the jury to me! I would never use the “nigger or Afro rig”, but the jerry rig–I wonder if that is now considered prejudical? Hmmmm.
My dad was famous for fixing things this way. He would never buy a part or tool if he could make it. It frustrated the hell out of me and is one of the roots for why I hate DYI projects.
I now recognize that I was an ingrate, but once when he helped me fix my VW bug I said “Wow, Mickey Mouse speaks German.”
I’d say most people on this thread got wooshed. Saim Sam got it. Afro-rigging is the same as nigger-rigging but with an added PC swipe. So in effect, it’s worse because there is an additional insult to people who think it’s improper.
I always heard jury rigged. Not sure why German-engineered means anything either way, particularly in cars.
I do remember that “made in Japan” was publicly accepted to mean shoddy or low quality for a long time. I was reminded of this at the showing a classic movie (in cinerama). The pre-show cartoon used the image of “made in Japan” on the bottom of an object to denote shoddy craftsmanship (can’t remember but it might have been on the bottom of a bombshell that didn’t explode). The stunned silence of the older crowd was interesting.
Young Doc: No wonder this circuit failed. It says “Made in Japan”.
Marty McFly: What do you mean, Doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan.
Young Doc: Unbelievable.
[indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent]–Back to the Future Part III[/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]
Another data point: I’d grown up with Jerry-rig. And understood it was a comment upon German engineering skills.
Of course I heard it most from my German-born grandfather who was proud of his ability to improvise solutions to anything. I’d always been aware of jury-rig, but preferred Jerry-rig, in honor of my grandfather.
It wasn’t til I was in the Navy that I’d first heard nigger-rig, and had never heard afro-rig til this thread.
Personally, I really do see the ability to improvise field repairs as a very good thing.
