Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

"Loaded to the axles with that lot I returned to cottage".  That's a line in a 1964 Dick Francis novel.  I believe we;ve discussed the fact that in English English, one often goes to destination, while in Murkin English, one goes to [article] destination; both leftpondian and rightpondian allow one to go to [activity].  

However, it's the phrase at the other end of the sentence that caught my eye.  If you put "loaded to the axles" in quotes and google it, you only get a half-dozen hits, and if you ngram it, you get nothing.  Loaded to the gills means getting thoroughly drunk, and apparently loaded to the barrel is the same, although I'm not familiar with that usage.

I presumed that it meant the vehicle was extremely overloaded, and the other hits from Google seem to mean the same thing.  Many people wil make a short trip overloaded like that, and not a few ones when fetching kids from college, going on a camping trip, etc., so I would think the phrase would be more common.  I can't think of any other idioms meaning the same thing.  But it sure seems like a nice phrase to glom onto.

A canal boat on the Miami and Erie system could carry 40 short tons, and most states allow a semi the same 80,000 pounds gross vehicle weight.  Many farmers own their own semis, to haul grain to marker.  When harvest time hits, prices can drop 10c a hundredweight in a day, and it's not unheard of for a semitrailer to carry a gross weight of 135,000 or 140,000 pounds.  That can mean $6,000 a trip, and if you can make 2 trips a day (there's usually a long wait at the elevator), you can pay off that semi in no time flat.  If you don't get caught, that is.  The fines for overweight carriage are so high, i've heard truckers say, you might as well just park the truck and walk away.

Again, more reason for "loaded to the axles" to be more common.