Amerika

Language encodes history through the consistency of ideas expressed in similar terms across time. Consider the odd case of jactation:

jactation (jak-TAY-shuhn) noun

1. Boasting.
2. Involuntary bodily movements, such as tossing or twitching.

[From Latin jactation (tossing, boasting), from jactare (to throw, boast),
frequentative of jacere (to throw). Earliest documented use: 1576.

This seems very similar to the slang term “jerking off”:

jerk off (v.)

slang, “perform male masturbation,” by 1896, from jerk (v.) denoting rapid pulling motion + off (adv.). Compare come off “experience orgasm” (17c.). Farmer and Henley (“Slang and Its Analogues”) also lists as synonyms jerk (one’s) jelly and jerk (one’s) juice. The noun jerk off or jerkoff as an emphatic form of jerk (n.2) is attested by 1968.

Which in turn lives on at a lower level of vernacular as something closer to jactation in both meaning and sound:

probably alteration of jerk off

Language is history, and also reflects the sounds things make or that we think they should make. Our past and future are written in our words.

Tags: etymology, language