bellwether

A bellwether is ‘an indicator of trends’. Here’s a very egotistical (and patently untrue) example:

‘Emma’s family and friends often look to her as a bellwether of fashion.’

Bellwether can also mean ‘one that takes the lead or initiative’, which is also not true of my fashion sense.

Nowadays you’re most likely to see the word ‘bellwether’ in political or economic commentary. Here’s an actual example from the Washington Post:

‘Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain and considered a bellwether for the industry, is just the latest to shake up its print offerings.’

So what do trendsetters have to do with bells or, indeed, wethers? Well, to answer that, please come with me to… a sheep farm.

All flocks of sheep have a leader. And shepherds and farmers have traditionally hung a, you’ve guessed it, bell around the top sheep’s neck. A ‘wether’ is a word for a male sheep (nowadays the term specifically means a castrated male sheep) – so the leading sheep is called a ‘bellwether’.

This term for the sheep prime minister has been around since the 15th century. And over time we started to use it to refer to anyone who’s the leader of the pack (or flock), who takes initiative or who establishes trends that are then taken up by others.

If you’re wondering how the sheep choose their leader, they either do that themselves, by letting the most dominant one take the lead, or the farmer does it for them. Why does the farmer want to rig the sheep election? Well, they might do this because one sheep is particularly good at navigating obstacles or familiar with the terrain, and can therefore keep the rest of the sheep on the straight and narrow. Who knew? (Well, all the sheep farmers, obviously.)

haywire

If something goes haywire, it means it works erratically, in a crazy way or doesn’t work at all. We often use it when we’re talking about technology. That might make you think the ‘wire’ of ‘haywire’ is something to do with power-type wires (that’s the official technical term), but you would in fact be wrong. ‘Haywire’ actually has a much older meaning to do with… wait for it… hay.

Well, I didn’t say it was exciting.

People who deal with hay (farmers, I guess?) use baling wire – a thin, flexible metal wire – to bind together (you’ve guessed it) bales of hay. It’s a bit like duct tape, in that it’s used for all different types of quick and dirty repairs (see ‘The Martian’ by Andy Weir – and the Matt Damon-starring film – for the wonders of duct tape: ‘Yes, of course duct tape works in a near-vacuum. Duct tape works anywhere. Duct tape is magic and should be worshiped.’ I wholeheartedly agree). Some of the repairs baling wire is used for include ‘wiring gates shut, mending a fence, holding rickety machinery together and stuff like that’. This led to the expression ‘haywire outfit’, which appeared around the turn of the century. It referred to New England logging camps which used cheap temporary fixes (often involving baling wire) for repairing equipment, rather than doing it properly. Eventually the word ‘haywire’ came to describe anything that was flimsy or patched together, and then for attempts to fix things that went wrong.

Unlike duct tape, hay wire also has a reputation for being tricky to manage. That’s because, much like Christmas lights, wired headphones and my jewellery, it can get itself in a complete tangle without any outside intervention. It was probably this that led to ‘haywire’ getting the meaning of ‘crazy’ or ‘out of control’.