March 11, 2022 - So your toaster burned your bread this morning. You check the toaster out and decided that it is out of whack. We are all quite familiar with this phrase “out of whack”. But just what does the word “whack” really mean?
This word seems to have originated in the late 1800s in England. It is a verb that meant “to beat or strike sharply and vigorously”, and was probably formed in imitation of the sound such a blow would make. As a noun, “whack” started out meaning such a blow, but soon developed a range of secondary meanings. One of the odder uses was “whack” meaning a portion, one's share, originally slang in the criminal underworld meaning “a share of the proceeds of a crime”. Just how this sense developed is uncertain, but it may have been coined as a play on the splitting of the loot.
Some people claim that the word “whack' went on to mean “an agreement”. “I'll stay if you will. Good. That's a whack”. In 1885 the opposite sense had appeared, and a person (or body part) in bad shape was described as “out of whack”. Almost immediately the phrase was also applied to mechanical devices. I find the following phrase appearing in 1906, “Being able to get at any part of the mechanism which may be out of whack is very important”.
I'll share a conjecture and a humorous story that may give an idea. The conjecture is that “whack” was what someone did to a recalcitrant mule. After gaining the mule's attention via brute force, the mule's performance returned to its normal good status. The following is the story:
A plant maintenance guy, the one who can fix any piece of any machine in the plant, retired. Three months later, at eleven o'clock in the evening on a Saturday night, the plant supervisor felt compelled to call the retired fellow for him to come to the plant to assist them repair a particular machine as nobody at the plant had a clue. The fellow pulled on his coveralls and went to the plant, He looked at the machine, then asked for a rather large rubber mallet. He reared back, slapped the machine a good one at a point he seemed to know by rote memory. The machine resumed working. He submitted a bill for $1,500. He stated that $50 was for the night call, and $1,450 was for knowing where to whack the machine.
One last thought here. Research shows that the word “whack” initially was a noun used to refer to a crazy or eccentric person, with the words, “wacko” and “whacko”. So, if you just don't feel right, if you are missing the mark, not quite right, you may be “out of whack”. Perhaps you need to make a call to a plant maintenance man who can whack what is not working right. That will surely get you back to tip-top shape.
