Off his rocker
Posted by James Briggs on January 04, 2002
I can find nothing in the Archives for this phrase. Today I had an email, part of which said:
"....anyway the reason
for the e-mail is that I am sure I
have heard a proposed origin for the phrase
'off his rocker'... if memory
serves the idea was that it came from early days
of steam engine
development....in particular beam engines....the beam engine
rocks back and
forth and if it comes off the pivot (rocker) it goes mad, flailing
about and
smashing up everything about it...."
What do others think of this? There's no origin offered in any of my reference books - in fact the phrase is only mentioned in two of them.
- Off his rocker Sauerkraut
01/04/02
- Off his rocker Bruce Kahl 01/04/02
- Off his rocker ESC 01/04/02
- Off his rocker Bruce Kahl 01/04/02