5 things about the word "job."

1. The oldest usage is a verb, meaning to peck or poke or stab at. Early examples recorded in the OED: "The Tool will job into softer parts of the Stuff," "Mendoza jobbed his opponent in the throat, who fell, evincing great weakness." High-tone modern example from classy novelist Thomas Pynchon affecting an old-timey speech pattern: "If you dare to leave your lawful wife, tonight or ever, this’ waving the Fork, ‘gets jobb'd in your Guts, are we in Agreement’?"

2. The noun originally appears in the phrase "a job of work," so the word "job" functioned to refer to a subcategory of whatever the work was. From 1557/8: "Doinge certen Iobbes of woorke." Early on, criminals used the word to refer to individual crimes. From 1690: "She rode about seven-miles farther, and then a Stage Coach she did Rob; The Passengers all cry'd out Murther: but this was a Fifty-pound Iobb." (Read the whole thing here: "The Female Frollick: OR, An Account of a young Gentlewoman, who went upon the Road to rob in Man’s Cloaths, well mounted on a Mare, &c..")

3. The boring meaning to which we present-day Americans gravitate — as discussed in the previous post — is (OED): "A paid position of regular employment, a post, a situation; an occupation, a profession." This is the meaning in the common phrase "Get a job." The OED gives us this quote from "American Speech" in 1858: "But when he gets a good fat job For dat am all he cares." Hmm. They don't transliterate speech like that anymore. I rankled at the racism (that I can only guess is there).

4. I'm just going to say "blow job" and "boob job" so you don't feel you have to write a comment telling me about such things.

5. What I really want to talk about — and the whole reason I'm writing this post — is:

... and by the way the Lions got jobbed on that pass interference call.  I don't care what anyone says, the Lions got jobbed on that call. Yeah, the Cowboys still won, and the Lions didn't do enough to win.  I understand all that.  I'm not saying it's a conspiracy, but they got jobbed on that call, that pass interference call where they picked up the flag.

That's Rush Limbaugh, on his show yesterday. I read that out loud to Meade, and he laughed heartily the first time I said "jobbed," which made it especially funny to hear the word 2 more times. The Lions got jobbed. According to the Urban Dictionary, "jobbed" means:

To be the victim of a conspiracy; to lose a seemingly fair contest because of deceit; to be guaranteed to lose. The term derives from the professional wrestling term "jobber."

Brett Hart was jobbed in the infamous Montreal Screwjob.
The Seahawks got jobbed in Super Bowl XL.

I note the footballcentricism of those examples.

I added the link on "jobber," going to the Urban Dictionary meaning of "jobber" that explains the role of a willing loser in wrestling. And I almost got distracted into the Beatles lyric...

Out of college, money spent
See no future, pay no rent
All the money's gone, nowhere to go
Any jobber got the sack
Monday morning, turning back
Yellow lorry slow, nowhere to go
But oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go

... but I got back to where I once belonged — to point #1, above, and the OED — and felt a nice sense of closure — a blog post's worth of closure — seeing that the oldest meaning of "jobber" is a person (or thing) that pecks or pokes at something.