I understand that. I am in an unusual position in that I lived in the UK until the mid sixties and then in the US for a number of years. Consequently I can remember quite clearly things before and after those two moves. I am pretty certain when I was at secondary school in the UK it was known that berk was a more serious word than other insults because of its provenance. If it is a back formation, it has made it into an etymological dictionary:
Jonathon Green, Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang (Cassel & Co) ISBN 0-304-35167-9
I’d be happy to be corrected, but if I heard someone say it like that I’d call it a mispronunciation and attribute it to ignorance.
I was actually considering something similar today (how much you can change the pronunciation of a place name according to your accent and dialect, and when it becomes wrong). For example, when Americans say “Edin-borough” are they wrong, or is it a legitimate pronunciation? Is it different for Peterborough, since it’s at least spelt with a “-borough” on the end? My (100% local) friend insists on pronouncing “Canterbury” as “Canter-bury”. I’ve yet to decide if he’s wrong, exactly, but it sounds weird.
Edinburgh is pronounced that way because the low Scots word for city (Linked to the English Borough) is Burgh, pronounced brra with the gh being the uh ending.
Americans pronouncing it as edinborough is as correct as them saying BirmingHAM- not at all!.
Same as Brits calling Birmingham Alabama Birmingum, or calling Michigan Mitchigan!
I think that’s the point - anyone pronouncing it ‘burkshire’ is just getting it wrong through unfamiliarity. I imagine that’s not uncommon, but I doubt it’s the official pronunciation in any British dialect.
And I really doubt it’s the way it is pronounced by Cockneys. Berkshire is right next door to London.
I think this connection is plausible: Some people with certain disabilities ‘jerk’ when they move. For example, someone with cerebral palsy. Some people with mental disabilities twitch, and twitch can mean ‘jerk’. People might think a palsy sufferer is mentally retarded. So calling someone a jerk is a way of saying someone is an idiot.
A simple google search will show you that the residents of jerkwater towns were called jerks by circus/carnival workers and the like, meaning that the people in those towns were seen as uneducated and unsophisticated suckers and morons, much like the term “rube” came to mean the same thing.
I’d agree that berk has lost its original strong impact through distancing from its origins (Thorne’s Dictionary of Contemporary Slang lists both Berkshire Hunt (pr. bark-sheer) and Berkeley Hunt (pr. bark-lee) as origins). I recall a Berkshire local newspaper calling BBC journalist Jeremy Paxman a berk, which surprised him as he thought they at least would have had some inkling of the etymology.
See also Charlie (Charlie Blunt) and Joey (Joey Hunt). The latter term enjoyed an unfortunate resurgence in the UK in 1981 when popular BBC middle-class children’s programme Blue Peter thought they would encourage a bit of compassion and understanding for people with disabilities by running a series of features on an elderly gentleman with cerebral palsy called Joey Deacon. They massively misjudged the innate cruelty of their core audience and Joey became an instant term of playground abuse over the whole country. Inappropriate hand gestures could be added for extra impact.
I don’t think that’s a case of Joey Hunt (that I’ve never heard myself, neither have I heard Charlie) enjoying a resurgence. The meaning of the inslut “Joey” in the eighties is completely different to “cunt” and has nothing to do with rhyming slang.
Jeremy Hunt is currently a rhyming slang term for cunt, though I don’t know if it will last. And it’s down to one radio announcer spoonerising “Jeremy Hunt, culture minister.”
Interesting, I hadn’t thought of it as such (“a proper charlie” is the old-fashioned phrase that springs to mind), but sure enough Collins dictionary gives the etymology as “shortened from ‘Charlie Hunt’, rhyming slang for ‘cunt’”.
(There’s also an old-fashioned Australian meaning given, where charlie means “woman”, which is from Charlie Wheeler, i.e. “sheila”.)
Ah, I also never thought of Charlie as being from rhyming slang and it definitely doesn’t mean the same as cunt. Interestingly it’s gone in a similar direction to berk, assuming both etymologies are true.
Hey Sam, always good to see your posts; you’re good people.
Yeah, I’ve never heard “Joey” used in the original rhyming slang sense - as a child of the 70s/80s it was Deacon every time. I’ve heard “Joe Cunt”, which may be related (as in “What’s your name son?” “Joe Cunt, officer.”)
I’ve heard Charlie used on a regular basis, though less frequently these days I will admit. It always tickles me when I hear a BBC Radio 2 DJ say they “felt a proper Charlie”.
That Jeremy Hunt tongue slip was magnificent, and I do hope it persists longer than the man himself. IIRC there was a small snowball effect of other broadcasters making the same error in the days following. I don’t think they were intentional, as that’s career suicide, more that the seeds were sown in the subconscious.
Which brings to mind the trope, urban legend, or reality, of asking a female employee to go into the waiting room and ask “Has anyone seen Mike Hunt?”.
