The evolution of "jerk" makes me also think of "nimrod" and how it referred to the biblical hunter and meant someone with great skills in hunting, until it was used to refer to Elmer Fudd, at which point the meaning changed to mean a complete idiot.

https://thehabit.co/nimrod-hectoring-maudlin-eponymns-and-pe...

It's fascinating that this pattern happened the reverse direction, with a different biblical term: the word 'fool' as used in the KJV Bible translates a Jewish concept that doesn't really mean what we think of today "a person without intellectual wisdom", but at the time of writing meant more closely "a person without moral wisdom" - or perhaps without both but apparently primarily referring to the moral flaw.

I have also seen the argument that our contemporary distinction between moral and intellectual wisdom itself is something we as readers unconsciously impose on the text, with the distinction not prominently drawn in the ancient Jewish view(s).*

This means that "Fool" moved from a meaning close to "an objectionable or obnoxious person" toward "a person without intellectual wisdom" over centuries, while "jerk" apparently has gone the opposite direction within just a few recent decades.

* I'm far from an expert at this.

I thought "nimrod" as an epithet (meaning ~"dummy") came from Nimrod, the Biblical king who ordered the construction of the Tower of Babel (which caused offense to God and thereafter great confusion -- which would have earned him the reputation of being a person who makes bad choices, if your belief system is so aligned).

Nimrod is a piece of music and an aircraft ... in my head, well before anything to do with a comic character.

That change has a singular impetus, though. The shift in a word like jerk seems to be more subtle and take longer.

For anyone that knew the reference, it was ironic. Needless to say, most of the viewers of that cartoon did not. There were more of the later than former, thus..

It's also still used as a name in Israel, I think.