Word of the Week

In honor of the 80th birthday of The Oxford English Dictionary, I'm doing a word a week (or whenever I get around to it). For more info on the OED, check out my first WOW.

This week's word represents a state in which I often find myself:

HAYWIRE

The dictionary specifically links this expressiong to us good ole Americans (and, I assume, that includes the Americans north of the lower 48, too, among whom I have many relations). By that, they mean to distinguish it from, let's say, British or Australian English...

According to my sources, the expression derives literally from the wire used to hold hay bales together. My husband, who's of an age and background to remember this, vouches for the difficulty and care one had to take when using it. In fact, before the advent of nylon cord, he says you used to see hay wire draped over fence posts, left by farmers who opened bales for feed. If the same location was used year after year, lengths of wire would accumulate on the post. Being a city girl, I had to ask why the farmer didn't just take the wire with him and throw it away, and my husband had to explain patiently that the poor guy was in the middle of nowhere and there were no trash cans around. Duh...

As language goes, I guess this is a relatively new expression. It dates from 1905 and originally meant “poorly-equipped or makeshift." Turns out this wire was particularly popular in New England lumber camps where it was used for jerry-rigging anything and everything. The phrase “haywire outfit” came to mean a camp that was ill-equipped and always short of supplies.

The word developed its current meaning because the wire was springy and difficult to control us the sense of “go haywire” or, as I often do... go crazy.

So...any of you gone haywire lately?