thingamajig - Wordsmith.org

My mother always called a thingamjig a dinglehoofer.

I love it

I like the general-purpose substitute term my mother-in-law used:

dooflop

I've never heard it anywhere else. I wonder if it is of her own invention?

Dooflop sounds like something that a cow or horse might have left behind.

I've heard, "That doofloppy". (doofloppie?)

Quote:

I like the general-purpose substitute term my mother-in-law used:

dooflop

I've never heard it anywhere else. I wonder if it is of her own invention?

I found it in a list of American Indefinite Names, compiled by Louise Pound, which includes the following doo-words:

doobob
doobobble
doobobbus
doobiddie
doobinnie
doodad
doodaddle
doodaddy
doodibbie
doodiddie
doodingle
doodinkus
doodle
doodlefadgit
dooflicker
dooflickus
dooflinkie
dooflinkus
dooflop
doofloppie (hi Jackie)
doofloppus
doofunny
doogadget
dooginkus
doogood
doohickie
doohinkie
doohinkus
doojiebob
doojigger
doojiggus
doojinnie
doojumfunny
doololly
doomiejig
doomAWADja
doomiewadjie
doosenwhacker
doowhacker
doowhackie
doowhopper

(you try spellchecking this stuff!)

my first reaction to thingamajig was this song..
(only i couldn't remember enough of it to find it..
dundee weavers
(its a bit baudy, but pg14 or so rated)

Reminds me of my late cousing Dierdre, often called Dee, who went swimming in the wrong river in northern Australia. Crocodile Done Dee.

edit: my typing is as bad as my proofing.

My mom always used to say, "That little doobiddie-business!", referring, for ex., to the dog that had climbed up onto the sofa and helped itself to the popcorn she'd left there.

Wow! Look at them all. And yet, I've never heard any of them in use except dooflop, and that by only one person.

Thanks, tsuwm.

Never heard dooflop, but have heard doodad and doojigger. [Good to hear from you, Sparteye!

]

Allo Sparteye, nice to see you again.

I've heard, and used, doohickie or doodad to mean a thingie or thingamajig.

Usually though, I only use doohickie for thingies having to do with hardware, like when I needed a doohickie to keep the door open but not a hook, more like a magnetic holder or a pressure thing, or something....

A doodad mans a thingie for anything else. Like all those nameless doodads that Tupperware ladies hand out as freebies at Tupperware parties because you've made the best sweater out of paper napkins or some game like that.

Doodle is a commonly known verb, na?!

this thread's a doozy.

entendoo (understandably)

doo dads was also the name of a snack mix (since surplanted by Chex Brand Party Mix I believe). The joy of doo dads was in turning the boxes upside-down on the store shelf.

doo
dads

spap
oop

About 15 years ago, the MSU Spartan basketball court got a new center circle paint job. Around the exterior of the jump ball circle was the block letter command to "GO SPARTANS". Only, our seats were on the side of the court for which the mandate was upside down, so we started chanting "OG SNATRAPS". The center court decor has long since changed, but we still implore those Snatraps to Og.

Quote:

About 15 years ago, the MSU Spartan basketball court got a new center circle paint job. Around the exterior of the jump ball circle was the block letter command to "GO SPARTANS". Only, our seats were on the side of the court for which the mandate was upside down, so we started chanting "OG SNATRAPS". The center court decor has long since changed, but we still implore those Snatraps to Og.

Hey Buckeye, it didn't much prodding for the SROTAG to OG, now did it?

The numero uno SROTAG, you see, OG without implorement.

The joy of doo dads was in turning the boxes upside-down on the store shelf. Oh, Myr--that's really pitiful. And even worse...I think it's funny!

Quote:

The numero uno SROTAG, you see, OG without implorement.

Yeah, that'll be the day. Let them play a best of five series after a season when they've played every other division I team at least four times. Then I'll believe a national champeen in college football.

This thread brings up a question I would like to present to this esteemed set of literary scholars (along with anyone else who is reading this).
I have grown-up with a common verbal idiom, denoting something that is loosely assembled and completely without forethought or design:
Jury rig. But I have read/heard it as Gerry rig.
Anyone know the proper expression and the root? I thought, perhaps, the "Gerry" comes as a reference to WWII and the German army building makeshift weapons in the field.
I cannot form any association in my mind to a Jury except that, in an attempt to prove/disprove/understand an assertion made by a witness, the jury would quickly assemble a replica.

ATdhvaannkcse,
THOM

at least on jury rig.

Check here and go to the left hand column, mouse over the I-J and select Jerry-Built/Jury rig for the full story. They both predate WWII by a good bit.

another fine example for why you should never assume anything!

Quote:

at least on jury rig.

Check here and go to the left hand column, mouse over the I-J and select Jerry-Built/Jury rig for the full story. They both predate WWII by a good bit.

What a joke! This silly fellow, David Wilton, seems to think that he can copyright what others have said. His spill is filled with absolutes that don't follow.
What a joke.

Now. Back to our discussion...

Ok, now here is an earlier user of the word "jury" in an unequivocal context.
From the last paragraph of the book THE LAST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS by Martin Duggard, 2006...

[He was old and sick, but Columbus's ingenuity remained limitless. He took control of the nameless caravel without ever leaving his sickbed, ordering the forecastle and sterncastle demolished and the lumber used to construct a new mast.]

"A jury mast was constructed from one of the lateen yards and partially braced with ropes and timbers," Fernando remembered. "Our mizzen mast was brought down by another storm, and it was God's will that we should sail in this sorry plight for seven hundred leagues, at the end of which we entered the harbor os Sanlucar de Barrameda".

[the date was November 7, 1504. Columbus was finally back in Spain, fifty-three years old and with less than two years to live.]

The quote by Fernando was written shortly thereafter.

So Fernando was writing in modern English? Sorry, I cannot view that as proof that jury was used in that fashion in 1504. I will bet you a buck that the quote from Fernando in the original Spanish or Portuguese or whatever he wrote in does not include the word jury. And I'll give you ten to one odds.

How about Capt. John Smith, who, in 1616 wrote:

Quote:

We had reaccommodated her a jury mast, and the rest, to returne for Plimouth.

Quote:

So Fernando was writing in modern English? Sorry, I cannot view that as proof that jury was used in that fashion in 1504. I will bet you a buck that the quote from Fernando in the original Spanish or Portuguese or whatever he wrote in does not include the word jury. And I'll give you ten to one odds.

And you'd be right, TEd. The question here, Mr Milum, would be the date of the translation. For the translator didn't pluck "jury" out of thin air.

Well TED, you are right. I owe you a buck.
What Fernando really said was...

"Un m�stil del jurado fue construido a partir del uno de lateen yardas y apoyado parcialmente con las cuerdas y las maderas"

And then he added...

"y el jurado todavia esta hacia en TEd"

After Fong's 1616 offering, the OED also has this from 1627:

Quote:

1627 {emem} Seaman's Gram. iv. 18 A Iury Mast, that is, when a Mast is borne by the boord, with Yards, Roofes, Trees, or what they can, spliced or fished together they make a Iury-mast.

Given that these are the written citations, the term must have been around for a while, na? Mid-to-late 16C at least?

Quote:

"Un m�stil del jurado fue construido a partir del uno de lateen yardas y apoyado parcialmente con las cuerdas y las maderas"

Yeah, right. With a fish stuck in his ear he said that.

Errrrm... Milo, that's not Spanish, neither contemporary nor sixteenth-century. Since you found the English translation, how about giving us the real original Spanish? I've tried a quick search, but no luck.

I'd preliminarily have to say that the choice of an old word like "jury mast" by this translator seems a good choice for sixteenth-century Spanish, if that's what s/he was translating in the first place.

EDIT: I've just remembered my Nigerian flatmate used to say "the doofer" when he meant "that thingamajig". I know a "doofer" is something else, but this was his usage.

Oh heck, Marianna, can't yall just accept my authority on these matters so we can move on to things more current?
No? Well, ok, I've sent an email to Martin Dugard who wrote The Last Voyage of Columbus asking him for the pre-translated words of Fernando's quotation.

Maybe I'm wrong. I'm reading from an advance copy of The Last Voyage of Columbus that hasn't been edited.

Hey! I've got another great idea! I'll write Benjamin Keen of New Brunswick, NJ, who translated The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus by Fernando Colon and ask him.

If I can find his email address.

Too late. Mister Keen died four years ago. His book (translation) was completed in 1992. Now what?

Ok, now we are making progress.

From the net...

[Fernando wrote a biography of his father, The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus, in about 1538. The biography was written in part to rebut some false stories about Columbus that had been published in Spain in 1537. It is not known what happened to Fernando's manuscript after his death, but it ended up in Venice, where it was translated into Italian by the Spaniard Alfonso Ulloa, and published in 1571.]

So let's see...

"A jury mast was constructed from one of the lateen yards and partially braced with ropes and timbers"

machine translates into Italian as...

Un albero jury � stato costruito da uno del lateen le iarde e parzialmente rinforzato con le corde ed i legnami

which translates back into English as...

"A tree jury has been constructed from one of lateen the iarde and partially reinforced with the ropes and the lumber"

Hmmm? No help there.

Well, the book in question (and in Italian) can be easily found on the web. In the last chapter, we find:

Nel quale, avendo avuto buontempo fin quasi al terzo del Golfo, fummo assaliti un d� da s� terribile fortuna, che la nave fu in grande pericolo. E il d� seguente, che fu il sabato ai 19 d'ottobre, essendo gi� bonaccia, e noi in riposo, l'albero si ruppe in 4 pezzi, ma il valore del Prefetto e l'ingegno dell'Ammiraglio, il quale non si levava dal letto per la gotta, vi trovarono rimedio, facendo un piccolo albero di un'antenna, e fortificando la met� di quella con corde e coi legnami dei castelli di poppa e di prora, le quali disfacemmo. Ci si ruppe poi in un'altra fortuna la contramezzana, e all'ultimo piacque a Dio che cos� navigassimo 570 leghe: nel fin delle quali giungemmo al porto di Sanl�car di Barrameda, e quindi in Siviglia, dove l'Ammiraglio ripos� alquanto dei travagli patiti.

The phrase in question is facendo un piccolo albero di un'antenna, e fortificando la met� di quella con corde e coi legnami which roughly translates as making a small mast from a yard, and strengthening its middle with ropes and lumber.

It's slightly annoying that if babelfish.altavista.com can't translate a word it leaves it unchanged and doesn't notify you in any way that there was a problem, e.g. jury in the Italian and lateen in both were probably not translated at all. I wish it would show untranslated words in a different color or something.

I also wish it would attempt to translate words that are missing diacriticals. Living in Texas and California, "accent-less" Spanish text is everywhere, but Babelfish won't translate it. I have asked several Spanish speakers if they could come up with word pairs that only differ in this way. It seems uncommon enough that it would be worth "guessing" (the only one I can think of ATM is s� = yes/si = if).

Thank you Faldage for that fascinating reference.
And, for me, the mystery is solved!!

Hmm.

zmjezhd your argument is damning.

The only query left to answer is this...

If "facendo un piccolo albero di un'antenna, e fortificando la met� di quella con corde e coi legnami" roughly translates as making a small mast from a yard, and strengthening its middle with ropes and lumber.

What then is a translation that is not rough?