[Loch-Ruadh] Word of the day

[Jane Sitton]

The Word of the Day for October 22 is:

jackleg * \JAK-leg\ * (adjective) 1a:  lacking skill or training:  amateur
*b:  characterized by unscrupulousness, dishonesty, or lack of professional
standards  2:  makeshift

Example sentence:

There we were, stuck in Nowheresville with a jackleg mechanic who told us
he'd fix the car, but we'd have to wait a few days unless we wanted to pay
him double.

Did you know?

Don't call someone a "jackleg" unless you're prepared for them to get angry
with you.  Throughout its more than 150-year-old history in English,
"jackleg" has most often been used as a term of contempt and deprecation,
particularly in reference to lawyers and preachers.  Its form echoes that of
the similar "blackleg," an older term for a cheating gambler or a worker
opposed to union policies.  Etymologists know that "blackleg" appeared
over a hundred years before "jackleg," but they don't have any verifiable
theories about the origin of the earlier term.