Since the dawn of time, people have been making up new, funnier, shorter, or morevisual versions of actual words. It's what made the cavemen more evolved than, say, their pet stegosaurus, Fluffy. Take the automotive world-there's an entire dictionary that could be filled with slang just for the internals of your Jeep.
We actually called up a linguistics consultant, Laura Grody, to find out why everyone's talkin' like that, Willis. "Lingo, or jargon, is terminology specific to a particular group or industry. It's used primarily for two reasons: to include people or exclude people. Someone might say 'I taco'd my frame' rather than 'bent' to show they speak the language and to gain solidarity." So, just like high school.
This month's puzzle only scratches the surface of the Jeep vocabulary, but make sure you're at least up to speed on these to guarantee you're part of that "in" crowd.
Answers the July 2009 Your Jeep, search for it.
Across
3. To make a component seemingly unbreakable
6. Another name for a junkyard
8. The fenders, cowl, and hood
11. ebuilding an engine, from the specs to even the weight of the rotatingmass, to factory original
13. he inner lip of a tire, sometimes gets 'locked
16. Quicker way to say "constant velocity"
17. A supercharger
20. Shorthand for electronic fuel injection
23. Make a part stronger, more robust
25. Half of "4x4"
28. A bolt shaped like the 21st letter of the alphabet
29. Your Jeep's serial number
30. What an original-equipment manufacturer is usually called
31. Transfer case, or this for short
32. Low, low, low First gear
34. Abbreviation for exhaust gas recirculation
35. Another word for tires
36. An unlocked differential
38. Who says "throttle-body injection"? Most say this
39. Suspension downtravel
40. Nickname for a four-barrel carb
Down
1. When the rearend of a Jeep is shortened
2. The camshaft
3. Bottom Dead Center, or this
4. Fuel injection that's tuned-port
5. Engine with valves in the block
7. The route you pick to go over, around, or through an obstacle
9. No one says "light-emitting diode"
10 The crankshaft
11. When you pump air or bubbles from the hydraulics
12. Type of welding that has Tungsten in its name
14. When the axlehousing rotates opposite the tires, then returns to position
15. Other name for a four-cylinder that also has "four" in it
16. Coil-around-a-shock setup
18. High-energy ignition, don't say "hey"
19. A piece of junk, but still drivable
21. Editor Cappa is rumored to have dated a pre-op this; your Jeep's has gears
22. Dynamometer is too wordy
24. Piston sans dome
26. Centersection, or Halloween project
27. Type of welding with "metal" and "inert"
33. All-wheel drive
33. The electronic control unit