20Oct Sunday, October 19, 2008 – Bailiwick

Bailiwick \BAY-luh-wik\, noun:

1. A person’s specific area of knowledge, authority, interest, skill, or work.
2. The office or district of a bailiff.

I’ll give it a try, but this is not my bailiwick.
— Sue Grafton, ‘L’ Is for Lawless

He “professed ignorance, as of something outside my bailiwick.”
— Marc Aronson, “Wharton and the House of Scribner: The Novelist as a Pain in the Neck”, New York Times, January 2, 1994

Fund-raising was Cliff’s bailiwick, anyway, and he seemed to have it in hand.
— Curt Sampson, The Masters

Bailiwick comes from Middle English baillifwik, from baillif, “bailiff” (ultimately from Latin bajulus, “porter, carrier”) + wik, “town,” from Old English wic, from Latin vicus, “village.”

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for bailiwick

The Bailiwick Theater is a pretty well known theater here in Chicago so that was the bulk of the hits today. Apparently, it is also a popular name with horses. So, mostly my choices are off-beat musicals and horseflesh. You get the offbeat musicals. Sorry about that.

Here’s some bondage and puppets though. For those special folks out there, for whom this is a good combination… I’m looking at you, sir.