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Monday, 3 May 2021

Spot the Frippet: jack.

 Well, there are jacks all over the place, so this should be easy.

A jack-tar is a sailor, a jack-the-lad is an enterprising (though dodgy) person; every man jack is absolutely everybody. You can lift a car with a jack, or roast meat on one.

Jacks are in packs of cards and harpsichords:


illustration by Nojhan, English captions by 
Jeff Dahl

 and games of, well, jacks, as well as games of bowls. You find them in electrical circuits (they're the female half of a connection that acts as a kind of circuit-breaker).

They fly from the bows of ships:

photo by Gary Mihalko

and another kind of jack forms part of a sailing ship's rigging.

They're to be found in tropical seas:

Crevalle jack. Photo by Kevin Lawver


And in the USA jack is money, which gets everywhere.

In fact, now I come t think about it, we really won't be able to avoid Spotting this Frippet.

Nice easy day for us all, then.

Spot the Frippet: jack. This word is short for Jenkin, which is a pet form of the name John. This Hebrew name means blessed by God.



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