Tuesday
13May
Is "Wheelhouse" in My Wheelhouse?
This is why I read Wishydig, right here:
I find one hit for
He’s in his wheelhousehere and one hit forShe’s in her wheelhousehere. Both of these 3rd person uses are in reference to contestants on the current season of American Idol.
Michael’s been tracking the different usages of “wheelhouse” for a while now. He’s not afraid to get his hands dirty with a little creative Googling either. It’s fascinating stuff, and I highly recommend following him on his doomed journey into the dark heart of the English language.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008 at 01:57 PM
Reader Comments (3)
two posts in one day... your butt is in my wheelhouse
The horror! The horror!
During one summer job between college semesters I worked for a heavy steel fabrication company. Very menial work and most of the guys working there were relatively unskilled and uneducated from a formal perspective at least. Management often treated the men as lesser beings, or maybe the men thought of themselves that way. Whatever the reason we common folk on the shop floor referred to the members of management as big wheels. There was an office located high above the floor where several of the big wheels hung out and we always called it the wheelhouse. But if their office was a wheelhouse the real meaning lies in the managers being big wheels and thus that usage is more to the point.
Aside from the remote possibility above I wondered about the millhouses that used to get their power from water powered by gravity. The water turned a big wheel and thus generated a lot of power which was transmitted into the millhouse where many wheels and/or gears used it. So perhaps that place could also be called a wheelhouse. Just a guess.