Citations:
1995 P.T. Deutermann Edge of Honor (May 1) p. 110: A twidget was anybody who wasn’t an engineer, and therefore, according to the snipes, not a real man. 1996 Alex Lee Force Recon Command: 3D Force Recon Company in Vietnam, 1969-70 (Nov. 1) p. 152: As the Marines laughingly said, once they had become fans of the use of sensors, “If you want it done right, keep the ‘twidgets’ out of the field!” 2002 Douglas Morgan Tiger Cruise (Mar. 1) p. 63: At this evening’s muster, ET2 Fred Larousse, one of Cushing’s twidgets—electronic technicians—and the senior man on the BAF, was holding forth on the subject of security alerts. 2004 Peter Hall Express-Times (N.J.) (June 20) “Cullen ‘kind of an oddball’ in Navy”: Cullen was a “twidget”—someone who made fine adjustments to computers rather than turning a wrench to fix the ship’s heavy equipment.