gig

One Gigabyte. 1073741824 bytes of data. (Yes, I did that from memory.) A handy measure of hard drive space. a Gig is 1024 Megabytes, and 1048576 Kilobytes.

A book by word.com. Regular people talk about their jobs in a series of monologues. The list of characters giving their stories is near exhaustive. An office temp, a fruit stand worker, a drug dealer, a plastic surgeon, a roadie, an FBI agent, a telephone psychic, a college professor, a video game designer, a porn star, a slaughterhouse human resources director ect. ect. ect. They each give a 2-5 page blurb on how they feel about their jobs, but usually they also reveal much more.

It was pretty amazing how many roles there are to be played; every personality trait, no matter how disagreeable, can have a place in the world.

Also, there are lots of boring people in exciting jobs, and lots of exciting people in boring jobs. I suspected this already, having a long stream of pretty dull jobs and loving my co-workers. The amazing thing: the cool people could make the worst kind of work seem interesting by having good observations.

I definitely felt more compassionate towards people after reading this book. There is an extremely limited circle of people that we all talk to every day, and it is easy to forget the plights and struggles of everybody else.

GIFs at 11 = G = giga-

gig /jig/ or /gig/ n.

[SI] See quantifiers.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

In general, gig is a slang term referring to someone's employment, often short-term. The word is most often used within the context of professional music performance, when a musician or band is hired to perform.

Hey Miles, we just got hired for a gig at The Village Vanguard.

As the lovely stash implies, a gig is like a concert, only smaller. To go to a gig is usually to go see live music in a pub basement.

In United States enlisted and officer military training programs, trainers encourage excellence in performance and adherence to standards in a number of ways. One method trainers employ is the judicious distribution of merits and demerits for outstanding and less than outstanding performance. Trainees tend to see more demerits than merits, and have historically called these demerits "gigs". The etymology of the word in this context is a little unclear, though it may be related to the act of spearing a fish or a frog with a sharpened stick as defined by Webster, below.

Gig (jig or gig), n. [Cf. OF. gigue. See Jig, n.]

A fiddle. [Obs.]

 

© Webster 1913

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Gig (gig), v. t. [Prob. fr. L. gignere to beget.]

To engender. [Obs.] Dryden.

 

© Webster 1913

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Gig, n.

A kind of spear or harpoon. See Fishgig.

 

© Webster 1913

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Gig, v. t.

To fish with a gig.

 

© Webster 1913

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Gig, n. [OE. gigge. Cf. Giglot.]

A playful or wanton girl; a giglot.

 

© Webster 1913

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Gig, n. [Cf. Icel. gIgja fiddle, MHG. gIge, G. geige, Icel. geiga to take a wrong direction, rove at random, and E. jig.]

1.

A top or whirligig; any little thing that is whirled round in play.

Thou disputest like an infant; go, whip thy gig.
Shak.

2.

A light carriage, with one pair of wheels, drawn by one horse; a kind of chaise.

3. (Naut.)

A long, light rowboat, generally clinkerbuilt, and designed to be fast; a boat appropriated to the use of the commanding officer; as, the captain's gig.

4. (Mach.)

A rotatory cylinder, covered with wire teeth or teasels, for teaseling woolen cloth.

Gig machine, Gigging machine, Gig mill, or Napping machine. See Gig, 4. --
Gig saw. See Jig saw.

 

© Webster 1913