Folklore: Bought The Farm

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 03:45 AM

Gone tits up. - this is usually (in the UK anyway) meant as 'it's all gone pear shaped' ~ a plan or orchestrated event has failed, causing everything around it to collapse or disintegrate.

Why tits should go up I don't know. Mine are perfectly happy hanging upsidedown off the nut bag.

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 09:56 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Amos
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 10:23 AM

From Random House:

"The expression to see the elephant has several related senses, all of which have to do with the idea of an elephant as a remarkable thing that one could see, for example, in a carnival.

The earliest, first recorded in 1835, is 'to see or experience all that one can endure; to see enough'. This presumably stems from the notion that once you have seen an elephant, no other sight could be as interesting. This sense is found in a number of examples through the 1850s, but then drops from use.

The major sense of the phrase is the broad 'to gain worldly experience; learn a lesson; lose one's innocence; see remarkable sights'. This dates from the 1840s and was relatively common throughout the nineteenth century, particularly in the American West. A specific subsense is the military 'to see combat, especially for the first time', which also dates from the 1840s. The reference of this phrase, then, is not to the actual use of elephants in combat; it's a figurative extension of an earlier meaning.

The phrase to see the elephant is still occasionally found. It is sometimes recognized as a nineteenth-century phrase--particularly from the Civil War--and is used in historical writing. It is also sometimes used in modern examples--we have examples of the 'to see combat' sense referring to the Vietnam War--but it is not that common, and is sometimes considered old-fashioned. "

A

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: wysiwyg
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 10:06 AM

"Been there, done that, got the t-shirt" = "Seen the Elephant"?

~S~

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 08:30 AM

Thanks, gnu, for that link. LOL

And, no, I didn't find the phrase "buying the farm" in WAR BIRDS. But it was fun re-reading that book.

Here's an example of a tall-ship sailor musing about the farm as channeled by John Masefield (italics added):

Hell's Pavement
(Poem by John Masefield, Salt-Water Poems & Ballads © 1921, p. 25)

"When I'm discharged at Liverpool 'n' draws my bit o' pay,
I won't come to sea no more;
I'll court a pretty little lass 'n' have a weddin' day,
'N' settle somewhere down shore;
I'll never fare to sea again a-temptin' Davy Jones,
A-hearkening to the cruel sharks a-hungerin' for my bones;
I'll run a blushin' dairy-farm or go a-crackin' stones,
Or buy 'n' keep a little liquor-store" –
So he said.

They towed her in to Liverpool, we made the hooker fast,
And the copper-bound official paid the crew,
And Billy drew his money, but the money didn't last,
For he painted the alongshore blue, –
It was rum for Poll, and rum for Nan, and gin for Jolly Jack;
He shipped a week later in the clothes upon his back;
He had to pinch a little straw, he had to beg a sack
To sleep on, when his watch was through, –
So he did.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 08:20 AM

All of the above are a bit off re "seen the elephant."

The version I've seen and heard, at least, holds that mastodon fossils had been found in the unsettled territories "out west" prior to the legal settlement.

The waves of migrants who travelled west to settle were often regaled with stories that implied that the "elephants" - great and dangerous beasts, still roamed in unknown places, and that the settlers might run into one at any time.

Although it was common enough "conventional wisdom" that there were no elephants. "I've seen the elephant" was an often used explanation given by

          THOSE WHO QUIT AND WENT BACK EAST.

Two interpretations for "seen the elephant:"

1. Gave up for unknown/unexplained reasons.

2. Something (that they didn't want to talk about) SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF 'EM.

Settlers who gave up would often be urged by others that they stay, since in those times cooperation and mutual help within the community was very necessary, and the loss of one, or one family, was a threat to all who stayed. "Seen the elephant" was simply an unarguable non-explanation that said the mind was set and argument was useless.

The second probably is the context in which a military person might have used the term in WWII era. Sort of an "I was really scared and I don't want to go back there again." Sometimes (usually?) it carried the notion of "I don't think I CAN go back again." But they usually went back again.

John

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Peace
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 11:05 PM

I think a neat one would be, "S/he left for Arizona, and s/he ain't comin' back."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: iancarterb
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 10:40 PM

I always thought of it in the way Charley Noble posited, something like 'swallowing the anchor" and buying a farm- a dream like the vision that drives the movie The Three Burials of Melchiades Estrada, implicitly a dream that is not realized in life. Probably something much simpler, closer to the 3 x 6 farm mentioned above.
Carter B

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: number 6
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 10:27 PM

kewl thread.

I'm outta here

biLL

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 10:24 PM

Seeing the elephant was often given as the reason for going to the goldfields of California.

1. to see or experience all that one can endure.
Earliest mention in print- 1835, becoming fairly standardized by 1848.
Longstreet, 1835, in "Georgia Scenes," That's sufficient, as Tom Haynes said when he saw the Elephant.
Kendall, 1842, "Santa Fe Expedition," There is a cant expression, "I've seen the elephant," in very common use in Texas. ...When a man has seen enough, when he gets sick and tired of any job he may have set himself about, he has "seen the elephant."
2. to gain from worldly experience or to learn a hard lesson from experience; lose one's innocence; (hence) to see remarkable sights.
1842- But, Squire, I'll say no more, I've seen the elephant.
1854- Lewis, "Mining Frontier," I am a man who wandered 'from away down east,' and came to sojourn in a strange land and "see the elephant."

I think I remember that this was in an earlier thread.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 09:54 PM

LOL! Wonderful contribution, gnu.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Bonecruncher
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 08:47 PM

"To pop one's clogs" means that the relatives pawned (to pop = to pawn) the clogs of the deceased to pay for the funeral.
A similar use is in the chid's rhyme "Pop Goes the Weasle". A weasle was a type of smoothing-iron used by a tailor.
Colyn.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: gnu
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 08:04 PM

I found it!!!!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 07:21 PM

Well, I'm up to page 120 in WAR BIRDS: The Diary of the Unknown Aviator, and no one has "bought the farm." A lot have crashed and burned and that's even before the group reaches the front in France.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: GUEST,allan s.
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 05:00 PM

WW2 amd Korean war. Survivors insurence. We all had to fill out paper work to name our survivor ie parents, wife, girl friend as to who would receive the $10,ooo that was to be paid in advent we were killed while in the service. This cash would be enough to pay off the morgage on a small holding. probably equal to 50,000-100,000 in todays money

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 03:55 PM

"Bought the farm" I would guess goes back to the WQorld War 1 fliers. Now that I've said that I'll have to re-read my favorite book from that period THE DIARY OF THE UNKNOWN AVIATOR, edited by Elliot White Springs.

It doesn't seem to have been a common tall-ship sailor phrase although they often fantasized "swallowing the anchor" and buying a farm.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Amos
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 10:42 AM

"Seeing the elephant" was a colloquial expression for having seen live action in battle. The idea being that while it is easy to reject the idea of an elephant as unlikely, you never get over having seen one in the flesh. Similarly, real battle is an experience that impresses its reality on the mind indelibly.

A

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 08:29 AM

Okay John, I'll bite: what DID having "seen the elephant" mean to early settlers?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: GUEST,ozchick
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 07:43 AM

Actually, I mentioned it to my dad today (oz, born and bred) and he knew what it meant - but he's a librarian and knows heaps of stuff - also, his dad was in the RAAF in WWII, so I don't know if there's a connection there?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 07:33 AM

"But "Bought The Farm" - I think that is very much a North American idiom, and one that hasn't travelled,"

Seem to remember my ex-RAF WWII dad using it - and he died in 1969.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 04:15 AM

As others have stated, the term "bought the farm" was common at least early in the '40s (by my recollection) and it appeared to me to have been known and used by those two generations previous to me.

While it was used quite a lot by military fliers in WWII and later, I always had the impression that an earlier usage was connected to the "dirt poor" farmers who had no hope of "owning the farm," due to the debt incurred to keep running one, and the "6 foot by three" farm in which they finally rested was at last theirs, and couldn't be claimed by the mortgage holders.

While it was common enought for the government to pay some compensation to a farmer whose crops were damaged by an errant plane - regardless of survival by the pilot, the payment (in cases in which farmers discussed it in "town meeting" in front of the pool hall on Saturday night where I listened) seldom was for more than the crop for that year, and a one-year-in-a-row "successful" crop payment didn't pay off the mortgage for many farmers.

I can definitely affirm that the usage predates the existence of any "jets" in the US military.

People who use a euphemism of this sort often don't much concern them selves with an "original meaning" if they have heard it, and can find a meaning in some context that makes sense to them in the time and place where they use it. An "earliest usage" for a term by one group of people and with one meaning doesn't necessarily disprove an earlier usage by others with a different meaning.

The older description of a military person or unit having "seen the elephant" on a mission was used, although not widely, in the WWII era by persons who most likely had no knowledge of what it meant to early settlers well before Civil War times.

John

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Wordsmith
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 02:33 AM

I've heard "bought the farm" all my life, too - 50+ years or so...then there's the alternative, "bought the ranch." Did someone mention "six feet under?" as in the wonderful (in my estimation) television series.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Gurney
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 02:08 AM

Even Peace's link didn't include this NZ Maori one. 'Sucked the kumera.'   Local name for a sweet potato.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: wysiwyg
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 07:58 PM

Planted

~S~

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 07:40 PM

'Touching wood' - Irish

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 07:32 PM

Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head,
    And when I woke up in me hospital bed
    And saw what it had done, well, I wished I was dead.
    Never knew there was worse things than dying.
         For I'll go no more Waltzing Matilda
         All around the green bush far and free,
         To hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs,
         No more Waltzing Matilda for me.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Peace
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 07:15 PM

Like, yeah . . . .

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 07:13 PM

Hey, there are thigns that are worse than death, eh?

- Shane

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Peace
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 07:05 PM

He's gone to Wawa.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 07:01 PM

"bought the Big One"

"got chilled off/bumped off/blipped off/knocked over/popped/rubbed out...etc." (death by violence)

"croaked"

"got zotzed"

"kicked off"

Then there's "swing", "do the dance", "fry", get "lead poisoning", and "take the electric cure". They're all kinda specific relatin' to the precise means of checkin' outta this world and inta the next one.

- Chongo

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Peace
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 06:57 PM

kicked the oxygen habit

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: gnu
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 06:57 PM

hehehehehehehe

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Peace
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 06:55 PM

bought a pine condo

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 06:49 PM

"Bought it", yes, that's familiar, especially for death in military combat.

But "Bought The Farm" - I think that is very much a North American idiom, and one that hasn't travelled, unlike a lot of North Anmerican idioms hasn't ever been exported. We see enough American filsm and TV, but I can't reecall ever coming across it before these threads.

It didn't even crop up in the Dead Parrot Sketch, which covered the territory pretty well.
..............................
Gone to glory Turned up his toes

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Peace
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 06:47 PM

213 euphemisms for dead/dying.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: gnu
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 06:41 PM

Gone to his/her reward???? The farm?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Helen
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 06:40 PM

Popped her/his clogs. That expression always makes me laugh.

Passed over (a Spiritualist concept, i.e. passing over to the other side).

Helen

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Peace
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 06:29 PM

Room temperature.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: gnu
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 06:23 PM

Bit the dust. Took a dirt nap. Pushin up daisies. Gone tits up. Croaked. Gave up the ghost. Passed on. Passed away. Passed onward. Passed.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 06:14 PM

Maybe when you "cash in your chips," you can buy the farm..

Jerry

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 05:48 PM

The problem with language is that it keeps changing trying to fix it down is like trying to nail jelly to a tree!


:-)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 05:09 PM

Buy (Bought) it-
From early military aviation. In Burchfield, Oxford English Dictionary Supplement, and Lighter, Historical Dictionary of American Slang.
1920- (ref. to WW1): The wings and fuselage, with fifty-three bullet holes, caused us to realise on our return how near we had been to "buying it."
1945, Huie in "Omaha to Okinawa"- A bomb dump went up...and...Palmer was one of those who bought it."

Buy (bought) the farm-
To crash fatally, especially U. S. Air Force.
1954, Jet glossary in NY Times: Bought a plot (had a fatal crash)
1955, in American Speech vol. 30: Added to U. S. Air Force Dictionary in 1956.
"Jet pilots say that when a jet crashes on a farm the farmer usually sues the government for damages done to his farm by the crash, and the amount demanded is always more than enough to pay off the mortgage and then buy the farm outright. Since this type of crash (in a jet) is nearly always fatal to the pilot, the pilot pays for the farm with his life."
1963 quote: "Look at the hole he made. He bought the back forty like a plumb bob."

Military, WW2: "One of those in the guts and we've bought the farm, I'll tell you!"

Now common in American and Canadian speech.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: gnu
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 03:41 PM

Ahem... bought God's Little Green Acre... in heaven. "THE" farm.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Arkie
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 01:47 PM

While the GI insurance suggestion sounds reasonable, it must go back to World War I. I have heard this phrase as far back as I remember and I can remember to the 50s pretty well.   I did not get the impression when I heard it that the concept was new as everyone knew what it meant if not where it came from. I would expect origins to go back to early 20th century, but it is interesting that the phrase is not common in the UK and Oz.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: bobad
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 08:00 AM

It's a saying I have heard as long as I can remember. In farm country one often hears similar sayings such as farmers live poor but die rich - because their farm is usually more valuable by the time they die.

The GI insurance bit seems to be the most plausible origin.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Mooh
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 07:34 AM

Don't know how common it would be around here (southern Ontario), ie I don't hear it often, but my family has always used it. Doesn't feel like a nasty euphemism to me.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Noreen
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 06:48 AM

Interesting snopes piece there.

I have never heard the phrase "bought the farm" in UK English (about someone dying) but the phrase "he bought it" as slang for someone dying, normally as the result of a car crash for example (not for a peaceful, natural death) is commonly used.

Snaopes says that this usage predates "bought the farm".

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: JennieG
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 01:10 AM

As Guest ozchick above says, it's an expression I have never heard used in Oz, certainly in the parts of Oz in which I have lived! I remember hearing "kicked the bucket", and more recently "fallen off the perch/twig/branch". My late father-in-law used to say "so-and-so has fallen off the twig" - he was over 80 by then and was probably wondering how long he had left. He died 2 days before his 89th birthday, 10 years ago. I think it was his way of facing up to the inevitable without getting too emotionally involved.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: Peace
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 11:17 PM

From Snopes . . . .

We used the expression as kids--that'd make it fifty years old at least.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Bought The Farm
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 11:16 PM

There's an E.E. Cummings poem about Uncle so-and-so who at the end starts a worm farm - or something to that effect -