If it feels like you've been hearing the phrase "out of whack" more often lately, you're not imagining things. Its use has been steadily rising in both British and American English over the past 25 years.
We've noticed it too, so we decided look into "whack" and its many uses.
Originally, whack meant “a vigorous blow.” It dates back to the 1700s and is probably imitative, i.e. it's probably meant to echo the sound of the blow itself. It could be a variant of thwack.
The phrase "out of whack" first appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1885, describing something that’s not working well or is out of alignment. At first, it referred mostly to people and their bodies, as in, “My back's been out of whack since I went horseback riding.”
Eventually, machines, phones, or motors could be out of whack too. The phrase also took on a figurative meaning, showing up in discussions of things like moral principles or financial projections.
By 1935, "wacky" had entered the language, meaning “odd” or “peculiar.” It have come from the idea of how one acts after a blow to the head, but we don't know that for sure.
To hear more about the other ways in which "whack" found its way into our language, listen to the audio above.
