to "fashion"; "in the weeds"

[Victor Steinbok]

Language Log May 8, 2006 (Liberman)

http://goo.gl/X9Ob1

     VS-)

On 5/6/2012 9:18 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> ...
> II
> This morning a defense analyst explained that Osama bin Laden had been "in
> the weeds" with Al Qaeda planning, and that one of his lieutenants "did a
> very in-the-weeds analysis of CNN."
>
> 'Involved in or involving the close examination of detail.'
>
> When I first heard "in the weeds" in the early '90s, waiters and waitresses
> were using it to mean "overwhelmed with work."   Pilots use it to mean "at
> minimum flying altitude" (1982, but semi-literal "wheels in the weeds" in
> 1966; a couple of firsthand sources use the former in a Vietnam War
> context.).
>
> JL

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