meaningmeaning-in-context
I was watching a TV show, and one man asked another where he was from. The response was "Pennsylvania by way of Illinois", and I can't really understand what it means in this context.
Edit: thefreedictionary.com says it means "passing through" but I don't see how it applies in this context.
The expression being used is wave off, not waive off.
This website from the Indianapolis Speedway explains it quite well:
Wave off – The process by which a team forfeits a qualification attempt. A driver or team can “wave off” an attempt any time before the start of the fourth and final lap in the attempt. If the run is waved off before the car takes the green flag, it does not count as one of the three allowed attempts for that car. Once the green flag is waved to start the attempt, the run counts as one attempt, even if it’s waved off.
If the context isn't auto racing (I assume it's not—what are live slugs doing in an auto race?), it's borrowed from auto racing, and has the same meaning.
When you tried searching on Google, did you put "boogeyman for everyone" in quotes?
It doesn't produce a lot of results (under 100), but it's rather evident that when that phrase is used, it refers to a person or thing being used as a rallying cry to incite anger or panic.
(The Google search results show the phrase being applied to a variety of hot-button political issues that might be the next boogeyman for everyone to get all up in arms about.)
In the context of the TV show, it sounds like the speaker didn't want that one controller to get all the blame – and perhaps all the media heat – for the accident.
EDIT: Here are a few examples that I found on Google. Due to the nature of the phrase, some of these are talking about contentious issues, which is why I didn't want to include them in my original answer; therefore, these come with the disclaimer that I'm not taking a stance on these issues, I'm merely quoting how other people have used the phrase.
On urban sprawl: He said the committee had to address the land-use density issue quickly because it's the "boogeyman for everyone"... (Lakeland Ledger, June 1989)
On teaching homosexuality in the classroom: He [Senator Campbell] is trying to distract voters from the fact that he has not done anything to address issues like unemployment and the state budget by creating a boogeyman for everyone to rally against. (from a comment on an April 2011 news story published by Vision to America)
On Global Warming: Global Warming/Climate Change is the new boogeyman for everyone to fear. (Posted July 2011 on a message board).
On former vice president Dick Cheney: He's a great boogeyman for everyone who dislikes the administration for whatever reason... in that regard, he takes some heat off the president. (from a 2007 personal opinion posted on a New Orleans Saints fan message board; I have no idea why they were talking politics – except it was April, the off-season for the NFL)
On Moammar Gadhafi: Everyone has been waiting for this day for Moammar Gadhafi to get out. Everyone in Benghazi is waiting for that very minute. They can capture the sons. They can capture confidants of Gadhafi, but until they have Gadhafi captured, dead or alive, people are still, even in Benghazi, somewhere apprehensive, because the man has been, quite frankly, a boogeyman for everyone. (from a CNN News Transcript, August 2011)
On Osama bin Laden: Bin Laden became the devil to Saddam Hussein's boogeyman for America. (Elizabeth Coulter, Co-producers of Illusion: How the Media Laid the Framework for America's Rush to War in Iraq, 2009)
On the exiled Stuart family: The descendants of James III lived on in France and were something of an ongoing boogeyman for England over the years, which regarded them all as a line of pretenders to the throne. And it was no secret that the exiled Stuart family wanted desperately to return to England and take bake the crown. (Hodapp & Von Kannon, The Templar Code for Dummies)
On Microsoft: Predictably, Microsoft remains a useful boogeyman for political purposes even though its share of global revenue for packaged software is only about 10% (Deek & McHugh: Open Source: Technology and Policy, 2007)
As the last few quotes show, sometimes people or corporations aren't the boogeyman for "everyone," but only for certain groups of people.
Best Answer
Wiktionary shows the sense “By the route of; through; via” for by way of, versus the sense “passing through something (as a place); via something” shown in thefreedictionary. A person giving “Pennsylvania by way of Illinois” as where he is from typically means born in Pennsylvania, grew up in Illinois.