(anti-)wheeling

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 12:48 PM, Grant Barrett
<gbarrett at worldnewyork.org> wrote:
>
> I've got an entry for this in which I have defined it together with
> what I believe is a related meaning. It includes a slight antedating
> of the political money sense.
>
> http://dtww.org/index.php/dictionary/wheeling/
>
> 1. in the electricity industry, the transfer of power between utility
> companies, especially through the networks of one company on behalf of
> another. 2. the transfer of money between political organizations in
> order to skirt campaign funding laws.

Thanks, Grant. Should've checked DTWW first, of course. The entry has this note:

"Both senses are jargon versions of a more general meaning of wheeling
'a turning aside or deviation.'"

So that's a *third* possible connnotation for the political sense,
along with "wheeling and dealing" and "wheeling (in) money (as if on a
wheelbarrow)".


--Ben Zimmer

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