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Reader question: Please explain “jumpstart the economy”. What does it mean exactly? My comments: It means you do something to enliven, revive and rejuvenate the economy that’s gone stagnant. This description is often used during an economic crisis, such as a recession, in which the economy stops growing – not only stops growing but begins to decline, with factories closing down, for example. Anyways, jumpstarting or jump-starting the economy is likened to jump-starting or kick-starting a car or motorcycle. Before writing this article, I thought “jump-start” and “kick-start” are the same, but upon closer examination, I found that they are different. To kickstart a motorcycle is easy to explain. Old timers like yours truly have all seen people kickstarting an old motorcycle. Youngsters of today must have seen someone do it, too, like, in a movie. And it’s done by actually kicking a pedal downward, which ignites the engine. To jump start a car, on the other hand, is different. In this situation, one car is dead and will not ignite because it has run out of batteries. Therefore a cable called jumpers is needed to connect the car to the battery of another car. By using the other car’s batteries as the power source, the dead car gets to reignite and start moving again. As a practice, “kickstart” (prod or propel something into action) has been in use since 1915-20, according to Dictionary.com. “Jumpstart”, on the other hand, was first recorded in 1973, according to Merriam-Webster.com. | 
