"Bitch on heels" (and "Hell on wheels")

[Wilson Gray]

FWIW, "Hell On Wheels" is the slogan of the First Armored Division. In the
'Fifties, this was parodied as "Hell On Heels," as a consequence of the fact
that all enlisted personnel - uh, I mean, "enlisted human resources," of
course - undergo basic infantry training, regardless of their eventual
military occupation specialties. At least, that's the way that it was a
half-century ago. ;-)

"Bitch in / on heels" is only a litereary term for me.

-Wilson

On 3/28/06, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Bitch on heels" (and "Hell on wheels")
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 3/28/06, Bapopik at aol.com <Bapopik at aol.com> wrote:
> >
> > BITCH ON HEELS--757 Google hits
> > BITCH IN HEELS--464 Google hits
> > HELL ON WHEELS--694,000 Google hits
>
> And let's not forget the transitional form, "bitch on wheels". OED2
> has an early cite:
>
> 1958 M. DICKENS Man Overboard iv. 59 It was his wife. She's a bitch on
> wheels, from what he tells me.
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
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