"Getting wrapped around the axle" Did anyone else notice this phrase in one witnesses' testimony?

[CTyankee]

I always heard this growing up post WW2 in Texas and I thought it was a Navy term.

I still use it. Anyone else know the derivation?

[Ocelot II]

1. I use it too, but I don't know where it came from.

[dalton99a]

2. Here:

https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2020/06/wrapped-around-the-axle.html

[niyad]

4. Thank you. You just gave me a new website! How did I not know this one?

[targetpractice]

3. Luttig... I loved that line...

... I didn't know the origin, but it's a great visual image... Happened to me with my bike as a kid, a lawnmower, and kitchen disposal.

The earliest example we’ve seen of the phrase in its original sense is from a 19th-century account of a mishap at a California woolen mill. The accident happened when a belt driving a piece of machinery, broke and “became wrapped around the axle or shaft of the wheel” (Sacramento Daily Union, Dec. 16, 1867).

https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2020/06/wrapped-around-the-axle.html

[viva la]

5. And let's not forget dancer Isadora Duncan

Killed when her long flowing silk scarf got wrapped around her car's axle.


http://facesofdeth.blogspot.com/2015/04/death-by-flowing-scarf-isadora-duncan.html?m=1

[KarenS]

7. gmta,,,, exactly. n/t

[sop]

6. I thought about the death of dancer Isadora Duncan when I heard the phrase.

In 1927 Isadora Duncan was strangled when the long silk scarf she was wearing became tangled in the rear wheel and wrapped around the axle of her open car as it traveled down tne road.

[Cracklin Charlie]

8. I heard it.

I think it was the judge. He seemed so sad about the whole thing.

[CTyankee]

14. Yes, I felt the same way. Very sad...

[Happy Hoosier]

9. Still hear that phrase all the time in my work.

Mostly from old farts such as myself, but pretty common in defense aerospace circles.

[Wounded Bear]

10. Definitely not a naval term, as examples above show...

It does come out of industry/automotive usages. I've known it and used it for a long time.

[CTyankee]

15. It was a Navy guy, actually a Seabee, who worked at the Pentagon at the time that used it once to

describe someone getting worked up and screwing up. So I figured, well he's a construction guy, he oughta know...

[Ptah]

11. Love that expression!

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216808278#post11

Luttig said "all the players" in the effort not to certify the 2020 election results "got wrapped around the axle by the historical evidence claim by Mr. Eastman," referring to John Eastman, the conservative lawyer who helped craft the scheme to overturn the election results on Jan. 6.

[zuul]

12. The Grammarphobia Blog states:

"The earliest example we've seen of the phrase in its original sense is from a 19th-century account of a mishap at a California woolen mill. The accident happened when a belt driving a piece of machinery, broke and “became wrapped around the axle or shaft of the wheel” (Sacramento Daily Union, Dec. 16, 1867).Jun 15, 2020"

My boss uses that phrase all the time and he is neither sailor nor a machinist. of course, he uses it in the wrong context, which makes it pretty hilarious.

[LuckyCharms]

13. I use the term. Urban dictionary defines it as follows:

The Urban Dictionary definition of “wrapped around the axle”: To be caught up in a situation or with a person to the extent that whatever happens in the situation or to the person also affects you, often disastrously.

I've used the term most of my life, probably because it is a common saying in my neck of the woods.

[cksmithy]

16. It is an expression

we've used when string, grass, hair, anything that get stuck on an axle. I have removed hair that gets caught on my roomba rollers where the axle attaches to the roomba. I used to clean/remove what ever got caught on my kids tricycle back wheels. (Take the cotter pin out and clean the axle.) My husband, a retired journeyman mechanic, has removed highway trash, plastic bags, etc., during the 1970's usually from 4x4 trucks axles, which at that time, the axles had more exposure to debris on the road.

[Kali]

17. wagon and/or automobile term

out here we sometimes get fence or baling wire wrapped around an axle. can be a dangerous situation or just a pain in the ass mess.