Is the term "wig out," related to wigs? Are Formica counters named for formic acid? Why is a big truck called a "semi"?

Let's find out!

—Wig out: You might think that this term, meaning "to lose one's cool," is derived from the days when people wore wigs. Someone so upset that his wig fell off would be "wigging out," right?

In fact, "wig out" IS related to wigs, but less directly. Sometime before 1900, the term "wig," meaning "a hairpiece," inspired the African-American slang term "wig," meaning "head, mind."

During the 1930s, mainstream American slang adopted this meaning of "wig" to create the phrase "flip your wig" (lose self-control), and, by the 1950s, "wig out" and "wiggy" had also appeared.

Interestingly, "wiggy" has two contradictory meanings. Because people wearing wigs were often pompous, "wiggy" has long meant "marked by excessive formality," but its newer meaning is nearly the opposite — "severely stressed, out of control."

—Formica: A big chemical component of ants is formic acid. In fact, the Latin word for "ant" is "formica."

Robert Frost played a nice rhyme off this in "Departmental," a whimsical poem about an ant colony. When one of the ants dies, Frost writes, "word goes forth in Formic: / 'Death's come to Jerry McCormic.'"

So, because the countertop covering Formica is hard and shiny, it must be made of formic acid, right?

Nope. As Evan Morris reports on his website worddetective.org, Dan O'Connor, a young engineer working for Westinghouse in 1912, coated fabric with resin (no formic acid involved) to create a new laminate material that could be substituted for the mineral mica as a better form of electrical insulation. So he dubbed it "Formica" because it was a replacement "for mica."

—Semi: The prefix "semi-" means "half" in Latin, but there's certainly nothing half-sized about the eighteen-wheelers called "semis." To unlock this mystery, it's important to know that "semi" is short for "semi-trailer."

A full trailer, like the SECOND trailer in a double-trailer truck, has wheels at both its front and rear. But a semi-trailer lacks front wheels and has a hitch mechanism instead, which is attached to the tractor truck by the "fifth wheel" — a horseshoe-shaped plate with a pivot.

So a semi-trailer swings separately from the tractor, which is why it's so hard to back up those rigs. Are you hearing that "beep-beep-beep" warning in your mind? Me too.

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., invites your language sightings. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via e-mail to [email protected] or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254.