While watching an old episode of Sister Boniface last weekend I noticed that the titular character used the word ‘gerrymander’ in what I considered an odd way. She was talking about someone monkeying with a bronze plaque so that it would fall on someone else. She said this hypothetical someone “gerrymandered” the plaque.
And she said it two different times in the episode.
In the US, you’d more likely say the plaque had been jerryrigged. Since gerrymander is a word created in the US, did the Brits pick up the word and change the meaning there? If you’re in the UK how do you use either of these words, if you use them at all?
The recent elections brought it back up in my mind.
Jerryrigged and gerrymander mean exactly the same here as in the US. I’m not familiar with the show, but my guess is the writers would be deliberately showing the character making a mistake, is this kind of malapropism consistent with the character?
Looks like the episode. It was about “twin” cities. Was that supposed to find words in the script? Because whatever the script said, I heard her distinctly say “gerrymander”. Twice.
It seems to me that they’re just reeeeeaaaaallllly stretching the connotation of “gerrymander” for the purposes of the joke. Something like “manipulated to shift the circumstances Gerry’s detriment.”
It’s just a joke trying to too reach too far, I think.
Sister does enjoy a bit of word play, the village was twinning with a German one not long after the War when Germans were still Gerrys in common speech. The word goes back to 1812, plenty of time for her to pick it up for a pun.
She was showing off as usual.
ETA The writers would have avoided the more obvious jerry rigged as many (mistakenly) now believe it offensive about Germans.
Well, I see that , but gerrymander doesn’t mean what she used it for. So, to me, it just made her look dumb, not clever.
Eldridge Gerry (US politician) combined with the ‘mander’ part of salamander. Someone thought the weird political districts he created looked like lizards.
It worked for me fine, I’m Australian which may matter. It was written for a UK audience. I suspect you have a stricter usage of the word than either we or the Brits.
Not really but I got the joke if that makes sense, It didn’t startle me like some moments in shows do. Puns don’t have to be strictly logical to tickle. Jerry rigged would have been better but that’s going to startle some.
That’s interesting, because I don’t think jerryrigged was ever considered a slur here. I could see why gerrymandered got picked up and merged with it as a “sort of” synonym to avoid being offensive.
Also there was no Gerry or salamander district in the UK so blurred edges on the meaning by the time it travelled are only to be expected. It was more important it hold a strict meaning in the US. I can see me pulling it out to try to explain a different form of corruption.
It’s “Elbridge”, not “Eldridge”. Also it’s interesting that his last name is pronounced with a hard G, like “Gary”, not like “Jerry”. So the current pronunciation of “gerrymander” doesn’t actually sound like his name.
