Whirling around on the gig economy
Are you part of the 鈥溾��? Almost everyone is, it seems.
And what exactly is it?聽
on the US Bureau of Labor Statistics website notes in passing that 鈥渢here is no official definition of the 鈥榞ig economy鈥� 鈥� or, for that matter, a gig,鈥� and you鈥檇 think the BLS would know.聽
But the website has stepped up to the plate on this one: 鈥淎 gig economy is an environment in which temporary positions are common and organizations contract with independent workers for short-term engagements.鈥� The writer (herself a participant in the gig economy, I surmise) continued, with portentous understatement: 鈥淭he trend toward a gig economy has begun.鈥�
鈥淔ree Agent Nation鈥� is the term for this phenomenon that you may remember from a few years ago. That was the title of a 2001 book by Daniel Pink. 鈥淔ree Agent Nation鈥� would make a plausible bumper sticker. 鈥淕ig economy鈥�? I鈥檓 not so sure.聽
Are there any lessons to draw from this new term, which says was coined at the height of the financial crisis in 2009?聽
Whence gig, anyway?
The Oxford English Dictionary has six definitions for gig as a noun, the first of them going back to around 1225. But it is definition No. 6, a sense Oxford traces back not quite a century, that has given rise to an entire economy, and it reads thus: 鈥淎n engagement for a musician or musicians playing jazz, dance-music, etc.; spec. a 鈥榦ne-night stand鈥�; also, the place of such a performance.鈥澛�
To judge just from the sound symbolism, gig is not a word to take very seriously. That short 鈥渋鈥� shows up in a lot of words for things that are small (kid) or insignificant (blip).听
But the hard 鈥済鈥� at either end suggests a certain rubberized resilience, a kind of land-on-your-feet bounciness.
dates the musician鈥檚 鈥済ig鈥� a bit earlier than Oxford: 鈥渁ttested from 1915 but said to have been in use c. 1905.鈥澛�
Neither dictionary offers any derivation of the word beyond 鈥渦nknown鈥� or 鈥渦ncertain.鈥� But the etymology dictionary, in its entry for another gig (a two-wheeled carriage, typically drawn by a single horse), speculates that the word was 鈥減erhaps imitative of bouncing.鈥澛�
That dictionary also identifies a couple of Germanic-language terms very close to 鈥済ig鈥� that mean 鈥渟pinning top,鈥� and also points out that Geige is German for 鈥渇iddle.鈥� 鈥淸T]he connecting sense might be 鈥榬apid or whirling motion.鈥� 鈥�
And let鈥檚 not forget whirligig, going back to around 1450 and still used to refer to various pinwheels and endlessly spinning lawn ornaments.
My local post office, I saw the other day, was advertising for help wanted 鈥� seasonal 鈥渃asuals.鈥� Will those who take such jobs identify with those exemplars of career stability, jazz musicians, whose slang term is coming to define the new economy?聽
Who knows? But that 鈥渂ounce鈥� of 鈥済ig鈥� suggests a kind of resilience we鈥檙e all going to need.聽
