If my memory of service in the field artillery in The War Before You Were
Born is correct, near side and off side are, in the U.S., reversed from the
British usage because the driver is on the opposite side. Hence near side
is the driver's side, left in the U.S., and the off side is the other side.
There was a line in the song `The Caissons Go Rolling Along' about
something or other `on the off side of a Jeep.' The line was obviously
added during the above-mentioned war.
There is a tool that I am sure we all have that consists of a straight
handle with a pivoting end that fits a socket wrench. It always has a hole
near the top of the handle. The tool is called, in the Sears tool catalog,
a `flex `T' handle.' It doesn't come with the bar to fit the hole, as does
the hollow socket wrench in the Sunbeam tool kit but that is obviously what
the hole is for.
I suspect that the word `Tommy' was used by the British as a handier thing
to say than `T.'
Fred Levit
fle426(at)nwu.edu
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