Learn English – What does “what for” mean and where did it come from?”

If you've ever had an electric shock, you're well aware of the jolting effects of a live wire.

It didn't take too long for the term live wire to enter the vernacular:

Probably everybody likes to be known as a "live wire." The First National Bank, of Ashland, Ala. thinks so for they recently used an advertisement which read as follows: "Every live wire has a bank account. Are you a live wire?" (The Bankers magazine, 1921).

If, however, you accuse yourself of being a live wire and capable of acting without the sound of a gong or the beck of a boss (from a 1922 ad)

More recently, from the realm of music:

Don't touch me, I'm a real live wire (Talking Heads, Psycho Killer)

I'm guessing that wired evolved from the term live wire, which connotes being energetic, full of verve, and ready to go.

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were famous dancers in, umm, the 1940s I think.

Fred Astaire was a very skillful dancer, performing many complex and difficult moves on the dance floor.

But humorist Bob Thaves once noted, "Sure he was great, but don't forget Ginger Rogers did everything he did, backwards ... and in high heels!" That is, when Ginger Rogers danced with Fred Astaire, she had to make all the same complex and difficult moves he did, but on top of that, as the woman she was dancing backwards while he was moving forwards, plus she was wearing high heels while he was wearing flat shoes, which surely made it more difficult still. So the point is, he was saying that Ginger Rogers's job was even more difficult than Fred Astaire's. (As I don't know anything about dancing, I have no idea if this is true. But that was the point of the quote.)

I don't think the original author was trying to say that Mr Roberts went backwards, but rather simply that the task he was trying to accomplish was very difficult -- like dancing backwards.

So without the allusions, the writer was trying to say something like, "This was a very difficult and tricky task. It's one thing to do X in general; it's even harder to do X under these circumstances."

I doubt the average young American would recognize this allusion. I'm 53 years old and I think it's fortuitous that I happened to recognize it. I suspect most Americans under 40 have no idea who Fred Astaire was, never mind recognizing the quote.

Houdini is better remembered, so yeah, I think most Americans would at least know that he was a renowned escape artist.

On the flip side, I'm only vaguely aware that Jersey Shore is some TV show popular today. I know nothing about it. But maybe it's well known to young Americans.

Now that you mention it, that was quite a set of cultural allusions to include in one brief quote. I wonder if that was deliberate or if it was basically a coincidence.