On the word "sprocket," and the Jetsons

The campy old television cartoon The Jetsons always portrayed George as working for Spacely Sprockets. His work consisted of occasionally pressing buttons that started or stopped sprocket manufacturing machinery.

For the record, a "sprocket" is a wheel-shaped object with teeth that mesh with a chain or belt. [If they mesh with each other directly, they are "gears".]

A sprocket sounds like a very old-fashioned 19th century sort of thing. But here in the early 21st century, there are large sprocket making corporations, such as JT Sprockets, which manufacture them for motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles. Indeed, in 2026 we are closer to the 2060s when the events of the cartoon are set then we are to the 1960s when it was created, and for all we know George's boss, Mr Spacely, may be a youngster now toiling, just out of high school, at a JT Sprockets facility.

The importance of sprockets in the day-to-day life of that cartoon's world is a running gag. George sometimes complains of feeling like "a mere cog" in the usual metaphorical way. What is a "cog," when metaphors are set aside? It is a single tooth in a sprocket or gear. So he was literally creating the reality that he used metaphorically as the image of his discontent.

Mind. blown.

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