Every freelance writer worth their salt is intimately connected with the most powerful words in the English language; a threesome guaranteed to warm the heart and lift the spirit on even the darkest day, no more so than when spoken softly over the phone from someone far away.
Those words are, of course, “are you available?”
The first time I heard them was in the early 90s. I’d resigned as editor of a trade magazine with the ambitious goal of spending more time with my young family and hitting the big time financially. I set up a fax machine in a cramped study and boldly invested in my first ever PC. A complete newbie in the tech world, I was lucky enough to have a friend who confidently told me that 40MB of hard drive would be more than I’d ever need - and as far as that PC went, he proved to be dead right.
As for my grand plan, I got my first wish and 30-something years on am still working on the second.
My first job was for a local ad agency who wanted a media release written. I couldn’t believe that someone would pay me good money to sit on my arse tapping on a keyboard in my dressing gown, sipping coffee as my kids tore each others’ heads off in the next room.
It took a little while for reality to strike. Paid gigs have an unfortunate habit of being interrupted by long stretches of unpaid non-gigs. If a fella’s gonna eat, he’s gotta hustle.
The word gig, as in a paid job, is of early 1900s origin, most likely thanks to jazz musicians, who are among my favourite human beings. It’s one of many words that they’ve given the language, including cool, chops, cat, bag, blow, dig, gone, hip, jam, scat and a long list of others, many of which have aged nearly as badly as a third-rate smooth jazz album, not naming names, my namesake.
One thing you might notice about those words is that most had been around for a long time before being appropriated. What those cool cats did was ascribe them new meanings.
Gig falls into the same category. Its original meaning, dating from the 1790s, was “a light two-wheeled carriage”, generally designed to be drawn by a single horse. That word may have originated from the mid-15th century whrylegyg, which needs no explaining. Before that, there was also the 13th century giglet, for a giddy girl.
How gig became a synonym for a paid job is unknown, which is not uncommon for jazz terms. Hip and even jazz itself, to take two examples, are shrouded in mystery. One possible explanation for gig is that around the mid-1800s it became a term for the combination of numbers in a betting game. Given the shady world of gambling and jazz’s connection with what are often thought of as vices but could just as easily be considered highly recommended activities for adults seeking a good time, the connection is, at the least, plausible.
Over the years, gig has produced multiple spinoffs, usually with a sexual connotation and often disparaging of women. They include giglot (mid-14th century), for a lewd or wanton woman; fizgig, for a light, frivolous woman; sheela-na-gig, a carved stone female figure that translates literally as “Sheila of the breasts”; gigolo, a male ‘escort’; and gigletry, lasciviousness and harlotry. If there’s one thing our ancestors knew how to do, it was hurl misogynistic insults that make modern keyboard warriors look like the illiterate lunkheads that they are.
Did I say “our ancestors”? There’s plenty of evidence that women today are just as vulnerable to gendered insults as their mothers - or, put another way, that men, collectively, are sexist pigs who regard things male as the norm, and anything female as suspect (present company excluded, of course).
Thanks to social media and other forces beyond my feeble ken, the trend may have accelerated in the last few years. Starting with his presidential run in 2015, Donald Trump has certainly given voice to a dark undercurrent of male fragility with his ready put-downs of any woman who poses a threat. What distinguishes them from his other put-downs is they’re often directed at women’s sexuality - a particularly vicious tactic.
But I don’t want to harp on too much about one individual. Trump wouldn’t be where he is without a massive fan base, and the fact that someone can act so appallingly and still be a serious candidate for the White House suggests to me that we’re in no position to judge our ancestors for their bad judgement.
But I digress. One of the things that got me thinking about this week’s word is the steady rise of what’s known as the gig economy, defined by Investopedia as “a labor market that relies heavily on temporary and part-time positions filled by independent contractors and freelancers rather than full-time permanent employees.”
From where I sit, this economy is good news. My business is based on companies outsourcing writing projects that could be done in-house, but at a higher cost. It’s good news for my team as well, which is made up almost exclusively of people who want flexibility.
But the gig economy also has a dark side. Traditional jobs for writers are becoming increasingly scarce as news channels close down and employers look to cut costs. While plenty of freelancers earn good money, others struggle. They end up suffering that double whammy: low income coupled with a complete absence of job security.
We’re not just talking writers, of course. If you ever meet a rich Uber driver, you can be sure they didn’t make their money behind the wheel (not legally, anyway).
According to Investopedia, in 2021 as much as a third of the working population of the US was likely working in “some gig capacity”. Payments company Rapyd reckons that economy is expected to almost triple in size between 2021 and 2028. Love it or hate it, like the industrial revolution it looks like it’s here to stay.
I can’t end this week’s newsletter without mentioning one of greatest jazz gigs I’ve ever seen, and the back story that elevates it beyond the merely interesting. In 1958, singer Anita O’Day was scheduled to perform at the famous Newport Jazz Festival. Expecting to deliver an evening performance, O’Day turned up in heels, a massive wide-brimmed black hat with white tassels, and a slinky black dress, only to learn she would be singing to an afternoon crowd. Like a true professional, O’Day delivered a stunning performance that was in keeping with who she’d always been - a female artist in a male world who never once forgot, or let anyone else forget, that she was in charge of the show.
Today, O’Day is overshadowed by other giants of the jazz world, but that’s a travesty. She was a consummate artist, the equal of Ella Fitzgerald in both skill and determination, and that’s saying something. If you watch only one video today, make it this one of O’Day performing Sweet Georgia Brown and Tea for Two (at the 15 minute 45 second mark).
Simply glorious.
Bits and specious
Speaking of gendered insults, here’s an interesting article from 2016.
More on Nim Chimpsky (see last week’s Lingwistics) and the failed search for language among primates.
Quote of the week
I’ve got all the money I’ll ever need, if I die by four o’clock.
Henny Youngman, comedian