We’re watching To Have And Have Not (1944). Humphrey Bogart’s character says, ‘How to you know I won’t do a jet?’ Clearly, he’s asking how the person knows he won’t ‘take the money and run’. Jet aircraft were very new in 1944. When was ‘jet’ first used to mean ‘leave suddenly’?
I’m more interested in how to whistle. Perhaps the sexiest line ever in a movie.
Do jets whistle?
Before the term ‘jet’ referred to jet aircraft, it seems it was used “to sprout or spurt forth, shoot out”. Online Etymology dictionary says that use dates back to the late 17th century and is derived from the french ‘jeter’, or ‘to throw’.
It’s interesting that ‘jet’, as used in the film, would survive from the 17th Century.
Did jettison come before or after jet aircraft?
Or is it completely different etymology?
ETA…I just looked it up. “To throw overboard”
I completely thought Bogarts character meant “to leave”
It came from ships, at least back to the 15th century.
Jet in the sense of a forceful extrusion of steam, of gas, of water, etc has been in continuous use from the seventeenth century; “jet engine” comes from this sense. I don’t know at what point Bogart’s idiom emerges, but it doesn’t come from a sense of the word that is in any way archaic.
You’ve never heard of a squid or octopus jetting?
Are you sure that’s what he says? “won’t to a jet” is weird grammar in modern English at least.
Transcripts of the film have that line as “How do you know I won’t do it yet?” - which makes much more sense both in context and just as a coherent sentence.
I recall as a child flying to and from South America, and even in 1961 we still went by propeller passenger aircraft. (DC-6?) It was around then that jet aircraft started to replace propeller as typical passenger transport. I think in 1944 a jet was a rare novelty even in WWII fighter aircraft. (but typical by the Korean War 1950-53).
Sorry, Typographical error. (They happen more often since my injury last year.) Bogarts says ‘How to you know I won’t do a jet?’
Maybe a mod can fix it in the OP?
I’ve looked up two sources, and I don’t see either of our versions. (Searching on ‘how to you know’, ‘yet’, and ‘jet’.) But the context was that Bogart was asking how they knew he wouldn’t just take off.
EDIT: But the dialogue I heard, whether I heard correctly or not, is just what prompted the question; the dialogue and the movie themselves are beside the point.
That’s a different film ! Your OP was about To Have And Have Not
This site contains the following dialogue …
“You have done enough for us already.”
“Gerard told me of your refusing Renard’s offer to give us up.”
“How do you know I won’t do it yet?”
Aw, crap. I’d just gotten out of bed. I knew I should have waited! Your dialogue looks reasonable, and I very well may have mis-heard.
In any case, the FQ is when ‘jet’ was fist used to leave suddenly. The film and the dialogue are irrelevant.
I have never heard it used that way at all…
But then, i’m from the uk, so…!
It was fairly common in SoCal in the '80s. ‘I’m gonna jet.’
Just a cursory glance thru newspaper archives, I found the first reference in 1955, well after your date. “. . . once [Hollywood actors] have it made, a lot of them do a jet job of getting away from it all.” But presumably it would have been in somewhat common parlance some years before that.
Edit:
I found this exchange. Seems to agree with “do it yet.” Bogie did have a bit of a lisp.
Gerard told me of your refusing Renard’s offer to give us up.
How do you know I won’t do it yet?
There are many things a man will do…but betrayal for a price is not one of yours.
It looks like it goes back at least as far as Shakespeare and the early 17th century.
The gates of monarchs
Are arch’d so high that giants may jet through
And keep their impious turbans on without
Good morrow to the sun.
Cymbeline, III.iii
Take a cold shower.
That’s about 40 years too late.
Again, the movie is irrelevant.