On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 11:21 PM, Richard Henninge < RichardHenninge@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > This misses, I'm afraid, what Wittgenstein refers to as the Witz, or > "point," more specifically, the "joke" of the expression "government work." > The expression was decidedly not meant as a stopgap measure until a better > solution came along. In particular, the worry about deadlines and such is > not a government problem. Instead, the expression, which can also be heard > as "close enough for government work," is an indication of the work done by > an organization and its employees who have secure jobs based primarily on > seniority and whose work is not subject to market forces. The government > hires contractors who compete with each other to get the jobs. Their work > will be measured with argus eyes, but if the government does the job itself, > they can jokingly say, "good (or close) enough for government work" and move > onto the next task. > > > I happily agree that, to the best of my knowledge, Richard is right about the origins of the expression "good enough for government work" and the point in its original context. Where I heard the expression most often, however, was when my father or uncles, ardent fishermen all, were doing last-minute repairs before heading off to fish; time pressure was involved because of their desire to catch the tide at the point when the fish would be biting. Another, similar context, was temporary repairs to tractors, lawn mowers or other mechanical equipment, when a breakdown interrupted a job underway (plowing the garden, mowing the lawn, using a chain saw to cut up firewood, that sort of thing). The context, in other words, was neither market nor bureaucracy, though the men using the term were familiar with both. In this context, the original metaphor was diluted but the sense of "not really ideal" remained. FYI, I use the term "diluted" here to refer to the weakening of metaphor that occurs when an image is taken out of its original context and used by people unfamiliar with that context, a point I take from anthropologist James Fernandez's Persuasions and Performances. A favorite personal example is "running around like chickens with their heads chopped off." When I was growing up, there was a period when my father was laid off from the Shipyard and we were growing our own chickens. I have vivid memories of the axe descending on the necks of hens that had stopped producing eggs and the bodies still jumping and twitching as the blood spurted out of the headless necks. I wonder what the image evokes to people who have not had this experience. John John John -- John McCreery The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN Tel. +81-45-314-9324 http://www.wordworks.jp/