On 'Jack' again

AFTER last month's "Wordspeak" on Jack's various meanings, reader Amita Tewari wondered if "hijack" was in any way associated with Jack. Questions arose why John, not Jack, was an ordinary and typical citizen (as in John Doe), a prostitute's client and a lavatory. Hijack comes later in this column; all the Johns will, in some future column. Now the rest of the Jacks, as promised.

First the Union. The flag of United Kingdom (and of the former Great Britain), history has it, was called "the Union flag" to commemorate first the union of England and Scotland in the time of James I (1566-1625), also of the Bible fame, and of Ireland in 1801. It was formed by combining the crosses of the three patron saints: St. George (England), St. Andrew (Scotland) and St. Patrick (Ireland), retaining the blue ground of the banner of St. Andrew.

Then the Jack. The sailing ships showed "their flag" or their nationality by flying a jack, a small pennant, and the pole from which it was flown was called the jack-staff. These pennants came to be known as the British Jack, the Dutch Jack, the French Jack, and so on. The Royal Navy had a small Union flag in the top left corner of their navy blue flag which sailors began calling the Union Jack. In later and more extended use, perhaps when Britons believed that Britannia ruled the waves, it came to denote any size or adaptation of the Union flag. The suggestion that jack for a flag came from Jacques (French for James) after James I is certainly far-fetched.

The practice of calling the male of some animals "jack" goes back to at least 16th Century, but nobody knows why. May be because jack was also a metaphor for a fool and males are generally stupider than their counterparts. Jackass for the male ass seems to confirm this, since there is no mention of a woman being called a Jenny (female ass). The donkey, poor fellow, has been victimised for its uncomplaining nature since pre-Biblical times. However, jackrabbits (jackass rabbits), whether male or female, are called the same except that they are not rabbits, but hares with long ears like a jackass, and cunning creatures if you ever attempted to catch one. Ditto for the both genders of jackdaw, a crow-like bird.

A further explanation is borrowed from Melanie and Michael Crowley, a couple known for their language-related writings. Ass is a pretty old word, with roots in the Latin asinus and in the late Old English assa. Both German ezel and Dutch esel are relatives, the latter being the origin of "easel," the wooden "ass" which holds an artist's canvas. This ass turns into horse in English, for "jack" is also a name for a saw-horse, a contraption used by carpenters. "Asinine" for stupid is another take on the beleaguered donkey, but "assiduous" is not, although it denotes someone hard-working, a donkey-like quality.

Hijack, meaning to stop a vehicle in order either to rob it or to steal the vehicle itself, appears to be a thoroughly 20th Century word. Its origin is hidden somewhere in the American underworld slang; it probably was a code word used by shady characters. Among mainstream writers, a variant of hijack was used by Ernest Hemingway in 1920. Two possible explanations of its origin are offered by Evan Morris, another writer on language: it came from the exclamation "Hi, Jack!" - supposedly a greeting offered by a robber to the victim. The other interprets "hijack" as "High, Jack" - the robber's command to the victims to raise their hands high in the air. None of the interpretations is taken seriously by Morris and other logophiles.

ANAND

E-mail the author at anand@journalist.com

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