Night Driving

**iamtheblues** · 08 October 2007, 07:36 PM

Originally Posted by parahandy

Let there be light.

Always suspected you might be God, Norman, moving in mysterious ways, your wonders to perform.

Nice car. Back in the day they used to be called "Jalopies". Anyone know why?
Saludos,
Bob.

**steve.ledger** · 08 October 2007, 09:23 PM

I too like to explorer the origins of words we use but never think about why or what they actually mean or how they came about.
The term 'Jalopy' was a derogatory one commonly used to (in fun) insult someones pride-n-joy, at least that's how it was used when I was a kid..

Definitions of jalopy on the Web:
bus: a car that is old and unreliable; "the fenders had fallen off that old bus"
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

http://www.fact-archive.com/dictionary/Jalopy
jalopy
An old, dilapidated automobile.

A few minutes searching the web concludes that the actual origins of the word are generally unknown.

"Yiddish is a candidate with shlappe, a term for an old horse that actually derives from Polish. A French origin has also been asserted, from chaloupe, a kind of skiff, though why the name should have come ashore in the process of changing languages is not explained. A lovely theory has it that the word comes from an Italian-American pronunciation of jelly apple. The story goes that a jell ’oppy was one of the decrepit old carts from which Italian immigrants sold this delicacy during the early part of the twentieth century. Others argue that it has a link with the Mexican town of Jalapa, where old vehicles were sent to rest and recuperate. Actually, a Spanish origin seems likely, but galapago, a tortoise, may be a more plausible suggestion, as a description of the slowness of beat-up old bangers."

Source http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-jal1.htm