soda jerker
- noun
- /ˈsoʊdə ˈdʒɜrkər/
- Archaic
:
dependiente de fuente de soda
- The soda jerker made the best milkshakes in town.
Examples
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Many teenagers once found summer jobs as a soda jerker in American diners.
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In the 1950s, my grandfather worked as a soda jerker at the local drugstore.
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The soda jerker crafted a perfect root beer float for every customer.
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Can you believe that soda jerker just quit?
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The soda jerker skillfully mixed flavors to create the perfect milkshake for the customer.
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At the ice cream parlor, the soda jerker served delicious floats and sundaes.
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Every Saturday, my friend works as a soda jerker, serving drinks at the local diner.
Synonyms
1
9.8
A person who used to serve drinks and ice cream at a diner counter
Surface Forms
Morphology
soda + jerker
The compound clearly signals an agentive relation (soda + -er/jerker), so a learner who knows 'soda' and the agentive pattern could plausibly guess it refers to a person who works with soda. However, the specific historical/cultural sense (operating a soda fountain) and the rare form 'jerker' are not directly derivable from the literal meanings and require exposure, so the transparency is partial.
Etymology
Soda jerker comes from old soda shops where the server pulled or 'jerked' a fountain handle to make fizzy soda. Because the job was this quick pulling, the worker was called a jerker, and the name came to mean 'a person who serves drinks'.