To Go Haywire

To Go Haywire To Go Haywire To Go Haywire By Maeve Maddox A reader asks, What does the expression â€Å"to go haywire† mean? Applied to a system or contraption of any kind, â€Å"to go haywire† means â€Å"to go wrong.† Applied to a person, â€Å"to go haywire† means â€Å"to become mentally distracted.† Here are some examples of idiomatic usage: My new companys server went haywire right after I moved everything. After a couple of years of sewing on  my new Singer, something went haywire. [They got along] except for that time when  she went haywire  and tried to kill  him. I loved Harlan and treated him right, but somewhere  he went haywire. Haywire, also called â€Å"baling wire,† is thin wire used to bind bales of hay or straw. At least it used to be. The last bale of hay I bought from Lowe’s was bound with plastic strips. However, I once bought some chicken wire that was held together with short lengths of thin wire. When I managed to untwist the bits of wire holding the roll together, it sprang apart, jabbing me with a hundred pointy ends. The experience was similar to that described by H. L. Mencken in regard to haywire: No one who has ever opened a bale of hay with a hatchet and had the leaping wire whirl about him and its sharp ends poniard him, will ever have any doubt how â€Å"to go haywire† originated.- The American Language, Supplement 1 (1946). According to a writer at WorldwideWords, haywire was â€Å"the duct tape of its era.† It was used to repair hinges, mend fence holes, and replace lost or worn-out machine connections. Haywire was used in contexts other than farming. A footnote in a history of the Bohemian Lumber Company (1985) explains that â€Å"some loggers and millmen would sometimes wire their machinery in place with baling wire to keep it running, sans parts.† In the 1900s, the expression â€Å"hay-wire operation† referred to a shoddy, poorly equipped logging business. A line called a haywire plays an important (and dangerous) part in retrieving felled logs. In 2012 an inexperienced logger in Washington State was killed by a haywire during cable logging operations in Lewis County. A glossary of hobo terms defines â€Å"a haywire outfit† as â€Å"something that is all tied and patched together,† a term similar to â€Å"jerry-rigged.† The most common uses of â€Å"to go haywire† are those that refer to something that has stopped working properly or to someone who has become emotionally distraught. Related post: Jury-rigged vs Jerry-rigged Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Probable vs. Possible