(Playing around with English morphology and male masturbation, so not to everyone’s taste)
It all started with a chance encounter with an ad for Jackery portable power stations, like this one:
(#1)
Given the orientation of my imagination, I was immediately taken to the idea of jackery ‘male masturbation, jacking off’, at places especially devoted to the practice, jackeries (aka jack-off / jerk-off / JO clubs). Clearly not what the Jackery Company had in mind, but where did they get their name?
From the “get to know Jackery” page on the company’s website:
(#2)
Jackery was established in 2012 and co-founded by a former Apple senior engineer and a CEO called Z Sun, a pioneer in the field of Li-battery technology. The original founder developed a battery jacket for the Apple iPhone, which is where the name Jackery comes from.
… Jackery makes portable power stations, solar panels, solar generators, and accessories for the outdoor and mobile market, but they are best known for their portable power stations.
So Jackery has the derivational suffix –ery (denoting ‘a place where some occupation, trade, or activity is carried on’) attached to an abbreviated form of jacket, referring to one of the company’s first products.
The details of words with the the noun-forming derivational suffix –ery are not at all straightforward, full of oddities of history; it’s not a particularly productive suffix. But there’s enough there that you can play with it.
On to this interesting messiness in some detail, and moving from battery jackets to male masturbation.
The noun-forming derivational suffix –ery. From Michael Quinion’s Affixes site (reformatted for this posting; the two relevant meanings are underlined):
The suffix has several meanings that can be broadly classified, though not all words fit neatly into one of the groups.
— One very broad set denotes a class or kind of objects: confectionery, crockery, cutlery, finery, greenery, machinery, scenery.
— Another marks places where some occupation, trade, or activity is carried on: bakery, brewery, cemetery, distillery, fishery, grocery, nunnery, nursery.
— A third indicates an occupation, state, condition, or behaviour: archery, bravery, butchery, devilry, mastery, rivalry, slavery, treachery; sometimes a depreciatory reference is meant: knavery, tomfoolery.
— A fourth denotes a place set aside for an activity or a place to keep things, animals or the like: fernery, piggery, orangery, rookery, shrubbery, swannery, vinery.
The company name Jackery has the second meaning; and so does jackery referring to a jack-off / jerk-off / JO club ‘place set aside for the practice of male masturbation’, crudely analogous to bakery or brewery . There are many such clubs all over the world, and they deserve a posting all of their own (just not today). I’ll leave the activities at such places to your imagination, but here’s the logo for one such club:
(#3) In Austin TX
Meanwhile, jackery referring to the activity of male masturbation has the third meaning, analogous to butchery or (my favorite) tomfoolery. In any case, you can indulge in jackery at a jackery.
May 13, 2024 at 9:18 pm |
Jackery is quite obviously derived from the function of the product, which is to collect and power a diverse array of electrical “jacks.” It’s mildly surprising that is omitted from the company’s explanation/blurb, but really par for the course marketing “expertise.”
May 14, 2024 at 3:41 am |
Well, not obvious to me, but then I’m not a techie. More important: trade names and other consciously invented names often don’t have a single “source”, but are chosen because they suggest several different things at once, sometimes only vaguely.
May 14, 2024 at 8:21 am |
And I’ve never heard the term “battery jacket” even though I’ve bought them (under names like charger covers/cases) for cell phones with inadequate battery life. I think the OtterBox brand name means water resistance, not a gay sexual reference.
May 18, 2024 at 7:37 am |
I bought one of those last year to run my CPAP on camping trips: it’s designed to last longer than the emergency battery which in my experience is only good for one night and part of a second. It came in handy last week when we had a power outage at home.
I also like the ambiguous nature of the term “butchery”: it could be a place where a butcher works, or a behavior associated with being butch. Think “butcher’s block” vs. “butcher-than-thou”.