Talk:Jitney

Also See

• News article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about the bootleg taxi service from December 24, 2005.

Help required to correct four WP pages using 'jitney'

The jitney disambiguation page gives several alternatives for the meaning of jitney, including a shared taxi and a Ford Model T. The latter is unsourced; the Ford Model T article does not mention jitney; and Wiktionary does not give that meaning. However, elsewhere I have read that 'jitney' was a popular term in the 1910s to describe an old car, similar to 'jalopy'; and it was also used to describe the Model T. Does anyone have reliable sources to support these two uses of the word?

The Charlie Chaplin film A Jitney Elopement (1915) (available on YouTube) includes a car chase involving two private cars. The WP article says Chaplin takes his girlfriend away in a jitney, 'a type of share taxi'. However, I think this is incorrect in this context, since neither vehicle in the film is a taxi. The first car, belonging to the wealthy Count Chloride and 'borrowed' by Chaplin for the elopement, appears to be a sporty roadster, identified elsewhere on the Internet as a 1909 Hupmobile Model 20. The second car, hijacked by the pursuers, appears to be a Ford Model T, and possibly the jitney of the title. Can anyone positively identify the cars, with reliable sources?

The 1964 Chuck Berry song "You Never Can Tell" includes the lines "They bought a souped-up jitney, 'twas a cherry red '53/They drove it down to Orleans to celebrate the anniversary". The WP article says a jitney is "a small bus that carries passengers over a regular route on a flexible schedule". Again, I think this in incorrect in this context, since there is no mention of any taxi service, sharing, or any passengers other than our two heroes. Could this actually be an old Model T that was souped up and painted cherry red in 1953? Does anyone have reliable sources for what Berry meant?

Masato.harada (talk) 16:14, 20 March 2025 (UTC)