Susan Guzzi wrote: > Gere's finding Buddhism has made him a better man. > Believe me, I had an opportunity to be on a movie set > with him many years ago - he was a total jag! Plus my > scene got cut! Good for him striving to be a better > human. >
A few weeks ago we were discussing words that were used locally - "jag" is one of those, used only in Chicago to my knowledge, short for "jagoff" which is a person who enjoys himself by himself, and the connotation is very nasty, very harsh. To call someone a "jag" or "jagoff" is really, extremely insulting and it has no corresponding insult even here in Michigan, just a few states away. The term "jackoff" is not used in Chicago, and outside of Chicago it doesn't seem to have the insulting connotations that "jag" or "jagoff" does. And if one were to say "jagoff" here in Michigan, no one knows what you are talking about, they don't know the word. I was totally stunned when CBS put a show on the air called JAG and other than a few Chicago newspaper tv columnists going, "hmmm..." no one else noticed so I guess the phrase is really localized. It was reported that the one way to get John Wayne Gacy to go berserk was to call him a jag or jagoff. The prison guards used to do that to him just to see his big time reaction. It has been speculated that his killing spree had its origins perhaps in some kid calling Gacy a jagoff at an inopportune time, which only testifies to Gacy being evil but also the power of that particular insult. I guess I am posting this for Wally mostly since he was so interested in local words and phrases.