Aug 21st, 2017: Extra Time

[sexobon]

"... For thou hast gone and made thee other gods, and molten images, to provoke me to anger, and hast cast me behind thy back: therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone."

It's a remarkable story, with a truly interesting linguistic sequel. The word 'Jeroboam' later (c. 1816) became a word describing an oversized wine-bottle; that is, a 3-litre bottle of champagne or Burgundy, 4.5 litres if Bordeaux. In 1827, the word became slang for 'chamberpot', because of the large capacity involved. 'Jeroboam' got shortened to 'Jerry', and the word 'Jerry-can' was used to mean a large water container with a capacity of about 20 litres or so. Compare the history of the word 'Jeroboam' with the doom of the king, and you get the feeling that slang-merchants used to be a very educated lot. ...

... The name Jerry was probably derived from the stahlhelm introduced in 1916, which was said by British soldiers to resemble a chamber pot or Jeroboam. ...

[NOTE: stahlhelm = steel helmet (WWI, the term is introduced.)]

... The history of the jerrycan is notable because the German design was reverse engineered and subsequently copied, with minor modifications, by the Allies during the Second World War. The name of the jerrycan refers to its German origins, Jerry being wartime slang for Germans. ...

[NOTE: WWII the term is popularized.]


It would seem that whether or not a German would find the word jerrycan offensive would depend on the context in which it's used (as usual) AND how much of a history buff that person is as it could simply mean a large capacity can.