[Moderating]
@Whack-a-Mole , you should know better than to hijack as the first reply to an FQ question. Leave the jokes and side-tracks until after there’s a reasonable attempt at a factual answer.
I do know better. My apologies. Sorry about that one.
~WaM
Yeah, I’ve heard it in that sort of context, I think probably in movies. I want to say it seems like a sort of beatnik language thing “I’m gonna jet/shoot/slide/haul”
Pretty sure Shakespeare was using “jet” in the sense of its cognate, the grand jeté.
Disclaimer: Okay, I’m not “pretty sure” of that; but it is plausible, and inspired in me an amusing mental image.
There was a lengthy intermediate phase where piston-powered aircraft were replaced by turboprops. In the case of Air Canada, it was Vickers Viscounts and the larger Vickers Vanguards, and both remained in service well into the era of the emerging DC-8s and DC-9s. The technical challenges of pure jets were so formidable that turboprops became a well-established compromise, basically turbines that obtained most of their thrust from geared-down propellers and only a small fraction from the exhaust gases, but they were otherwise very much like jet engines. Ironically, modern high-bypass turbofans revert back to that same idea, except instead of the majority of the thrust coming from a propeller, it comes from a large ducted fan.
Keep in mind that language mostly evolves from usage by common folk, not by aviation specialists. Show most common folk a turboprop plane, and they’ll think it’s a jet, even if that isn’t a particularly accurate technical term.
Mishearing aside, I’ve heard the phrase “Let’s jet” (for example) but not “Let’s do a jet”.
On further investigation both the Pelican and Riverside editions define it as “strut.”
Yeah, ‘do a jet’ sounds like a 21st century meme ‘doin me a jet’
West Side Story set in 1957 - the Jets and the Sharks
If newspapers can be considered repositories of common word usage, the term “jet” seems to be used exclusively to describe material and color from the 1800s to the 1930’s - “jet black”, ebony and jet". in the 1930s it seems to expand to describing mechanical operations - “jet gas burners”, “carburetor jets”. “Jet assisted take-of and and jet motors” show up in a future-looking article about the post-war aircraft and rocket industries. Lots of mentions of jet aircraft of course in the late 40’s and throughout the 50’s.
I don’t see it used as a term meaning to move quickly until airline ads in 1960 - “You can leave from Detroit today and arrive in London tomorrow. Jetting to Europe is as easy as B-O-A-C!”
This is all from the Cleveland Plain Dealer archives. YMMV with other newspapers.
Going back to the original FQ, here’s a citation from 1946 from a *comic strip of all things. Setting is a restaurant where three men are having a meal:
Person 1: I’ve been spearing the hamburgers for a couple of days now without so much as getting a broken wrist. Where’s the Major?
Person 2: The missus discovered that eye disease was phonyissimo. He ducked the mop and jetted out into the wild blue yonder.
Person 3: He mumbled something about going to Singapore, but I don’t think he could get that far on a bus transfer.
*“Our Boarding House with Major Hoople” May 7, 1949
??? That jetted right above my head.
Flew in from Miami Beach…
How was your paperback?
*knock knock* What are you doing in there?
Spearing the hamburgers, mom!
(I got nothin’.)
I’ll give it a shot:
This comic strip is (obviously) set at a boarding house, where food is passed around in bulk. So, for bulky stuff like hamburgers and potatoes, you would stab (spear) it with your fork and place it on your own plate. The Major, who had left abruptly, was apparently rather aggressive with his menu selection, and one of the other tablemates was commenting on how there wasn’t as much competition for food. I saw another strip in that series where one of the tablemates said “He’s the world champion at spearing spuds!”
Shouldn’t that be paper bag ?
╮(╯_╰)╭
It seems I’ve been mishearing that lyric ever since the song was released. Thanks for the correction, it will now go down on my ever-growing list of mondegreens.
Oh well, I used to think the title of their song ‘Paperback Writer’ was ‘Take the Back Right Turn’. But I learned better about that back in the 1970’s.
From my computer-version of the OED:
jet, v. 1 Obs.
b. To move along jauntily, to caper, to trip.1557: T. Phaer Æneid vii. Tiv, “Girt in skinnes they iett, wt vinetree garlonds borne on prickes.”
1604: T. Wright Passions iv. ii. 3. 134 “To trip, to iet, or any such like pase, commeth of lightnesse.”
1632: T. Morton New Eng. Canaan (1883) 180 “Cleare running streames…jetting most jocundly where they doe meete and hande in hande runne downe to Neptunes Court.”
a1700: B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, “Jetting along, or out, a Man Dancing in his Gate.”
jet, v. 1 Obs.
c. quasi-trans. to jet it. (Cf. to trip it.)1526: Skelton Magnyf. 974 “Mary, thou iettes it of hyght.”
1592: Nashe P. Penilesse (ed. 2) 10b, “Mistris Minx…iets it as gingerly as if she were dancing the Canaries.”
a1624: Bp. M. Smith Serm. (1632) 229 “They iet it not onely in soft clothing, but in cloth of gold and of siluer.”
a1634: Randolph in Ann. Dubrensia (1877) 20 “Where…harmlesse Nimphes, jet it with harmlesse Swaynes.”
1672: Maypole Dance in Westm. Drollery 80 “Then ev’ry man began to foot it round about; And ev’ry Girl did jet it, jet it, jet it, in and out.”
jet, v. 1 Obs.
2. intr. To stroll; sometimes simply a humorous equivalent of walk or go. (In quot. 1546, to `depart’, to die.)1530: Palsgr. 563/2, “I get up and downe, I loyter as an ydell or masterlesse person dothe, je vilote.”
1546: J. Heywood Prov. ii. iv. (1867) 49 “God forbyd wyfe, ye shall fyrst iet. I will not iet yet (quoth she), put no doutyng.”
a1571: Jewel On 2 Thess. (1611) 134 “Poore soules came creeping and crying out of Purgatory, and ietted abroad.”
1600: Maides Metam. iii. i. in Bullen O. Pl. I. 137 “Ioculo, whither iettest thou? Hast thou found thy maister?”
1706: Phillips, “To Jet, to run up and down.”
a1777: Robin Hoode & Q. Kath. xix. in Child Ballads v. cxlv, “Thus he ietted towards louly London.”
jet, v. 2
II. 3. To throw, cast, toss. Obs. exc. dial.1659: D. Pell Impr. Sea 407 “As the ball that is jetted to and fro upon the racket.”
Ibid. 414 “They have no mind to bee jetted up to the Heavens in a storm.”
1877: N.W. Linc. Gloss., “Jet, to throw with a jerk.”
jet, v. 2
4. intr. To spring, hop, bound, dart. Obs.1635: Quarles Embl. iii. i, “Like as the haggard, cloister’d in her mew,…Jets oft from perch to perch.”
1647: H. More Song of Soul ii. iii. iii. xxxiv, “Not more heavie then dry straws that jet Up to a ring, made of black shining jeat.”
1827: Montgomery Pelican Isl. vii. 174 “He hoped to see…The wingless squirrel jet from tree to tree.”
jet, v. 1 Obs.
5. intr. To revel, roister, riot; to indulge in riotous living.1514: Barclay Cyt. & Uplondyshm. (Percy Soc.) 2 “In the towne & cyte so long jetted had he, That from thens he fledde for det & poverte.”
1530: Palsgr. 570, “I go a jettynge or a ryottynge, je raude.”
1584: R. Scot Discov. Witchcr. xii. xvii. (1886) 216 “A certeine sir John…once went abroad a jetting, and…robbed a millers weire.”
1640: in Balfour Scot. Ballads 37 “That he may jet in dancing and whooring.”
Not really much help this time.
He definitely says “do it yet”, not “do a jet”.