Robin Hood's barn
Stan Brown
Hood's barn" as a clich� for taking an unreasonably indirect route.
Today I noticed that the highway department has closed off one of two
access roads to the place where we deposit yard cuttings, so that
people leaving to go east must now go around three sides of a largish
rectangle. "Why are they making people go around Robin Hood's
barn?" I wondered to myself. *Then* I wondered, "where does that
phrase come from, anyway?" I decided to look it up in my Brewer's
when I got home, and I did; but, surprisingly, it's not in my copy
(17th edition).
Will someone tell me the origin of the phrase, please?
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...
Dr Peter Young
> Since at least the 1950s, I've heard "go round [or "around"] Robin
> Hood's barn" as a clich� for taking an unreasonably indirect route.
> Today I noticed that the highway department has closed off one of two
> access roads to the place where we deposit yard cuttings, so that
> people leaving to go east must now go around three sides of a largish
> rectangle. "Why are they making people go around Robin Hood's
> barn?" I wondered to myself. *Then* I wondered, "where does that
> phrase come from, anyway?" I decided to look it up in my Brewer's
> when I got home, and I did; but, surprisingly, it's not in my copy
> (17th edition).
> Will someone tell me the origin of the phrase, please?
Try http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/around_Robin_Hood's_barn
With best wishes,
Peter.
--
Peter Young, (BrE, RP), Consultant Anaesthetist, 1975-2004.
(US equivalent: Certified Anesthesiologist)
Cheltenham and Gloucester, UK. Now happily retired.
http://pnyoung.orpheusweb.co.uk
Donna Richoux
> On 12 May 2010 Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>
> > Since at least the 1950s, I've heard "go round [or "around"] Robin
> > Hood's barn" as a clich� for taking an unreasonably indirect route.
>
> > Today I noticed that the highway department has closed off one of two
> > access roads to the place where we deposit yard cuttings, so that
> > people leaving to go east must now go around three sides of a largish
> > rectangle. "Why are they making people go around Robin Hood's
> > barn?" I wondered to myself. *Then* I wondered, "where does that
> > phrase come from, anyway?" I decided to look it up in my Brewer's
> > when I got home, and I did; but, surprisingly, it's not in my copy
> > (17th edition).
>
> > Will someone tell me the origin of the phrase, please?
>
> Try http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/around_Robin_Hood's_barn
>
I'd like to add that the way I learned the phrase was Robin's barn, not
Robin Hood's barn. I rather assumed that those who said "Robin Hood's
barn" had made some sort of expansion error. But I see now that although
I can find "around/round Robin's barn" back to 1870 in Google Books,
they have "around/round Robin Hood's barn" even further back, to about
1814.
The ODEP doesn't have anything combining Robin and barns, but they do
have "Robin Hood's mile = one of several times the recognized length"
and "Robin Hood's pennyworth = thing or quantity sold at a robber's
price. i.e. far below the real value".
--
Best wishes - Donna Richoux
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Since at least the 1950s, I've heard "go round [or "around"] Robin
> Hood's barn" as a clich� for taking an unreasonably indirect route.
The first Google Books hit I see is from the March, 1806, issue of
_The Literary Magazine and American Register_:
But I am going, as my father used to say, "round Robin Hood's
barn."
So it was apparently though of as an old saying even then.
> Today I noticed that the highway department has closed off one of
> two access roads to the place where we deposit yard cuttings, so
> that people leaving to go east must now go around three sides of a
> largish rectangle. "Why are they making people go around Robin
> Hood's barn?" I wondered to myself. *Then* I wondered, "where does
> that phrase come from, anyway?" I decided to look it up in my
> Brewer's when I got home, and I did; but, surprisingly, it's not in
> my copy (17th edition).
>
> Will someone tell me the origin of the phrase, please?
I don't see an origin before 1878 (so more than 70 years after first
attestation of a then-old saying), but the explanation given is
We leave Newstead Abbey, and retaking our "fly," conclude to go
around Robin Hood's barn, instead of along the side of which we
came; for we suppose it pretty well known that this celebrated
structure comprised the many thousand acres of Sherwood forest,
and that the King's deer were always stored therin for Robin,
whenever venison was scarce.
_The Gardener's Monthly and
Horticulturalist_, March, 1878
From these old tales we find that Robin Hood was good to the poor
and robbed only the rich. The spoil which he got he hid away in
the forest. Hence the woods were known as Robin Hood's barn; and
when people want to say that they took a roundabout road to get
anywhere, they still exclaim, "I went all around Robin Hood's
barn."
H.A. Guerber, _The Story of the English_,
1898
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Usenet is like Tetris for people
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |who still remember how to read.
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(650)857-7572
Mike Barnes
>On 12 May 2010 Stan Brown <the_sta...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>
>> Since at least the 1950s, I've heard "go round [or "around"] Robin
>> Hood's barn" as a clich� for taking an unreasonably indirect route.
>
>> Today I noticed that the highway department has closed off one of two
>> access roads to the place where we deposit yard cuttings, so that
>> people leaving to go east must now go around three sides of a largish
>> rectangle. "Why are they making people go around Robin Hood's
>> barn?" I wondered to myself. *Then* I wondered, "where does that
>> phrase come from, anyway?" I decided to look it up in my Brewer's
>> when I got home, and I did; but, surprisingly, it's not in my copy
>> (17th edition).
>
>> Will someone tell me the origin of the phrase, please?
>
>Try http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/around_Robin_Hood's_barn
Thanks - now I understand. I haven't heard the saying before and
wouldn't have understood it. It doesn't help that AFAIK Robin Hood
wasn't a farmer, so he wouldn't have had a barn.
--
Mike Barnes
Cheshire, England
Stan Brown
<the_sta...@fastmail.fm>:
> Will someone tell me the origin of the phrase, please?
Hmm -- less straightforward than I expected. Thanks, Donna and Evan!
John Dean
The point is that everything a farmer might keep in a barn was available to
Robin in the country around his base, even though titularly belonging to
others.
--
John Dean
Oxford
Joy Beeson
<mikeb...@bluebottle.com> wrote:
> It doesn't help that AFAIK Robin Hood
> wasn't a farmer, so he wouldn't have had a barn.
The non-existence of the thing you are going all around was part of
the point of the expression when I first heard it in the forties. If
you take a route that goes around Robin Hood's barn, you are going to
be gone for quite a spell.
Joy Beeson
--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.