It all started when I used the word bailiwick. I was speaking to a young woman. Perhaps, I was trying to make an appointment or to gather information. When I realized that she could not answer my question, I said, “That’s okay. It’s not in your bailiwick.” She asked what bailiwick means. I chuckled and said, “Your generation would use the word wheelhouse.” She nodded.

I googled bailiwick. Wiki said the source of “bailie” was from the French and refers to a bailiff or sheriff, while Merriam-Webster places bailie and bailiff in Middle English, the language of Chaucer. Both sources recognize “wic” as meaning a village. But, they disagree on the origins. Wiki credits the Anglo-Saxons, however, Merriam-Webster points us toward the Latin word “vicus” which survives as -wich, the last syllable of town names such as Norwich.

While a wheelhouse originally referred to either a covering for the wheel of ship, or, the workplace of a cutler, generally placed by a stream to capture water power with a wheel, in order to sharpen knives, wheelhouse was later adapted to baseball where it meant the area where a batter is most likely to hit the ball. Historically, wheelhouse was always linked to competence, skill, a trade, production and even the guidance of a ship through storms and home to port. Wheelhouse shares some of those modern meanings with bailiwick which originally meant a controlled district.

Why wheelhouse is now used more frequently than bailiwick is anyone’s guess. As I researched these words, I found several laypeople who deny they are synonyms. A synonym is a word that shares a close meaning, or, sometimes, the exact meeting of another word. While the history of these two words are very different, they are now twins.

Let’s talk about that. We often express ourselves by pointing out how people, places and things are similar to other people, places and things. It’s the famous reaction to a new-to-you food: “It tastes like chicken.” Comparisons help us understand each other. We would be in a continual fog if we did not have the simile. Shakespeare asked, “Should I compare thee to a summer’s day?” then immediately set about comparing the subject of the poem to sunshine and weather. Will Shakespeare was a bit of a nerd.

Perhaps, because wheelhouse is a word more obvious in meaning than bailiwick explains why wheelhouse is more likely to be used by the generation now between 40 and 50, as well as that generation’s offspring. When I first experienced the word wheelhouse as meaning an area of expertise, I assumed its roots were in maritime travel. I did not know about the baseball connection.

And while I knew the current meaning of bailiwick, I knew nothing of its etymology, which I found fun. Speaking of fun, bailiwick is much more heart-warming and joy spreading than wheelhouse which reeks of Captain Ahab and the sperm whale that rammed the ship the Essex and, in so doing, inspired Herman Melville.

I am a Celticist and a Medievalist. A concern of people pursuing those disciplines is the replacement of the Celtic languages in the British Isles. Although some of the early human inhabitants walked over Doggerland to what is now England, they did not remain. Humans fled the glacier-covered land over the centuries, only to be replaced by other explorers. No one knows what languages they spoke. Theories for the almost complete replacement of the Brythonic languages of the Islands include the replacement of males; that the Brythonic languages were not native languages but a lingua franca, and, the preference for the prestige languages of either the governing class or the mercantile class.

Not all linguistic changes are known or knowable. The Neanderthals and the early Homo Sapiens who trekked to the British Isles were not literate. We can‘t guess how they traded, taught their crafts, raised their children or, possibly, made peace with others.

Despite our writings — both imaginative creations and the accounts historical, personal and scientific — we’re fuzzy about the origins of some words that we use daily. Words vanish. The generational markers of the 1960 — far out, cool — are more than a bit tired and are often used satirically. However, they may become as difficult to trace as bailiwick some day.

Which reminds me. If your parents were of Tom Brokaw’s Greatest Generation, perhaps, you heard either mom or dad say copacetic. My parents did. Try scouting its origins. At least a dozen ethnic groups are suggested as the source. One candidate is writer Irving Bacheller in his Lincoln biography, “A Man for the Ages.” Another is the dancer Bo Jangles who used it in his radio broadcasts, while a finger points to songwriters Tom Delaney and Sidney Easton who thought this word meant “everything is in place” attest it as a password for gaining access to (the ironically named) speakeasies of the 1920s!

What are we saying? Words. Words. Words.

Susan Wozniak has been a case worker, a college professor and journalist. She is a mother and grandmother.]]>