"You're a jerk!" = "How dare you refuse to be my personal slave!"

A thought just popped into my head. Maybe this thought is not absolutely true, but ... maybe it is absolutely true.

If person A points to person B and says "You are a jerk!" then, I wonder if 100% of the time the translation is "How dare you refuse to be my slave!?"

"Jerk" seems relative and subjective. And I think "jerk" is not a boolean value (you either are or are not), but, rather, some people are bigger jerks than others.

That's the translation 90% of the time. The last 10% of the time, the translation is: "How dare you not agree unconditionally with what I say?"

In physics, jerk is the change in acceleration. So when person A calls person B a jerk, it means that person B's thinking is accelerating faster than person A can keep up with, which upsets person A. Thus, person B is a jerk.

That's how I take it, anyway.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerk_(physics)

I've always understood a jerk to be someone who is doing something with the intention of being disrespectful or obnoxious. A guy laughing at his girlfriend after pulling a prank on her might get called a jerk for example. I honestly don't hear people using the term that often outside of that sort of context.

This just reappeared on my radar and I think I have a bit of polish for this:



"You are a jerk!"

translation:

"How dare you refuse to be my slave!?"

Thinking about it, I would give the word "jerk" a stand alone definition of one who is obnoxious and contemptible.

But when used as an insult, such as "you're a jerk!", of course the target isn't the jerk at all. Then the meaning changes to...
...how dare you not agree with me
...how dare you not do as I say (same as how dare you refuse to be my slave)
...how dare you embarrass me
And anything else along those lines. It is actually the insult hurler who is being the true jerk.

we have a term here in west Pa

jag-off

which is used more than jerk here
often yelled to other drivers along with hand signals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagoff

Jagoff or jag-off is an American English derogatory slang term from Pittsburgh English meaning a person who is stupid or inept.[1] It is most prominent in the Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania areas.[2][3] The Dictionary of American Regional English defines the term as a "general term of disparagement."[4] It is an archetypical Pittsburgh word, conjuring warm and nostalgic feelings among Pittsburgh expatriates.[5]

According to Barbara Johnstone, Professor of English and Linguistics at Carnegie Mellon University,[6] the term has its roots in the northern British Isles, an area that supplied many immigrants to Pittsburgh.[7] It is derived from the verb "to jag," which means "to prick or poke."[7] Johnstone said that "Nobody thinks of these derivatives of ‘jag' as obscene."[8]

On Monday and Tuesday, I led a crew of young, and inexperienced guys, at removing stucco from a bank.

 I gave several demonstrations to unwilling learners. They were using the wrong tools , in the wrong way and they did not appreciate the input. This led to a situation where I was able to remove material faster than the other five combined. They produced a broken up gravely material , while I produced slabs weighing up to 200 pounds.

One of them decided that he wanted to learn. Those who were unwilling to follow my lead, where put at cleaning up the heavy slabs and putting them in the bin. The guy who became quite useful after half an hour , didn't have to do any cleanup during the two-day period. The others thought that this was unfair and that I was a jerk.

I have been called a jerk in many situations, but most commonly when I'm demonstrating a technique at work and contrasting it with the feeble efforts of others.

 These weren't my employees, but I was in charge of production. Had they been mine, I would have fired all but one. This would have made me an even bigger jerk.
 
On several occasions, I have been hired to weed out a crew of lackluster employees. Some people shy away from this sort of task, but I enjoy nothing more than cutting out the dead wood and hiring replacements, until a useful crew is built. In the end, the useful people who remain end up earning more money. One thing that I really like about construction and demolition work, is that it's all merit-based. It doesn't matter if you've been working for a company for 20 years or 20 minutes. If someone is better at their job, they can expect to be put in charge and receive more money.

 This is another thing that makes me a jerk. The highest paid employee in the crew I was running, makes about $150 a day. I showed up at $350 a day and five minutes later, I'm his boss. This seems perfectly natural to me, but highly unfair to the poor slob who has failed to develop useful skills.

"If you see an asshole in the morning, then you just saw an asshole,
If you see assholes all day long, then YOU are the asshole."

I don't know that that always holds true. I know a guy who is quite agreeable most of the time. He works at the flophouse owned by the Salvation Army. It's his job to deal with drunken assholes, lazy assholes, and thieving assholes. This just means he has a job, it doesn't make him an asshole. I think it would turn me into one, but then I'm well ahead of many on that curve.

"If you see an asshole in the morning, then you just saw an asshole,
If you see assholes all day long, then YOU are the asshole."

reminds me of a joke

Wife "Honey, be careful on the way home. I just heard on the radio that some idiot is driving the wrong direction on the freeway."

Husband "One idiot? There are hundreds of them!"

Once in a while, when we find ourselves in conflict with the world, it's because the world is wrong and we're doing what's right, but not always. If you find yourself in that position, stop and review the situation. You may be the one with clear vision, or you may be the idiot going the wrong way on the freeway.

I've experienced both situations in my life.

Dale Hodgins wrote: One thing that I really like about construction and demolition work, is that it's all merit-based. It doesn't matter if you've been working for a company for 20 years or 20 minutes. If someone is better at their job, they can expect to be put in charge and receive more money..

If more businesses paid by "merit" they would have way better employees & have a more profitable shop.

The best teacher that my children ever had was a middle-aged lady who came to teaching later in life after raising four children. Being a new teacher, she was at the bottom of the pay scale. The worst teacher they ever had was another woman in her fifties who had been at it for a long time and just didn't care anymore. She was at the top of the pay scale. If for some reason, it had become necessary to trim a teacher from their staff, it would have almost definitely been the good teacher.

I met someone who is involved with their Union, and ask her what a teacher would have to do to get fired in this province. She said that nothing short of molesting a child is likely to cause a firing.