Around Robin’s Barn

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Grant. This is Gail Millard from San Antonio, Texas.

Welcome to the show. Nice to talk to you.

Hi.

Thank you. Well, I live in Texas, but I am a fourth-generation Oklahoman.

And there is a phrase that my mother has said since I was a little girl.

And my brother and my dad and I have always teased her about it.

And she could never really talk about where it came from, but here it is.

When we are going from one place to a destination, and that route includes a fairly circuitous route, she would say, we had to go around Robin’s Barn to get there.

And she could never really tell us where that phrase came from, although I did ask her recently.

And she said she thinks her grandmother used to say that, that if something was hard to get to, you would say, we had to go around Robin’s Barn to get there.

So my question is, who is Robin, and why did he build a barn in such an inconvenient location? And what’s in it?

Yeah.

Gail, have you heard anyone else use it?

No, I haven’t.

In fact, that’s been kind of strange.

Obviously, it came from someone in her family, and I never heard anyone in our family say it either.

It’s only my mother.

Well, it’s interesting that she says around Robin’s barn, because usually the phrase is around Robin Hood’s barn.

Oh, really?

Yeah, Robin Hood as in the guy who lived out in Sherwood Forest, far, far away from everybody else.

Okay.

And you see this expression all across the U.S., across basically the northern part of the U.S.

You can look at a map of it, and it’s right across the northern half of the United States.

People say, by way of Robin Hood’s barn, or go around Robin Hood’s barn, or around Robin Hood’s barn and in the back door.

Well, I can’t really tell you where my family came from before Oklahoma.

I’ve never really done a genealogy, but because Oklahoma was settled by pioneers, they came from somewhere.

So they may have come from the north.

But the expression can just, it can travel without having the people move.

You know, the expression can travel on its own from mouth to ear, mouth to ear, and so forth.

Yeah, sure.

Sure.

So we’re not actually referring to an actual barn, are we?

Well, no, it depends on your perspective, right?

The story, Martha, tell me if I’m getting this right.

The idea is that Robin Hood would go and steal from the rich, and he would steal lots of things, animals and rich clothing and what have you, and he would store it in the forest.

Sherwood Forest was then literally his barn.

That’s the place where you keep things, right?

And so when you talk about Robin Hood’s barn, you’re talking about the forest or some patch of land in between one destination and another.

I see.

Well, and that also kind of makes some sense because I always wondered why it was really that big a deal to go around a barn.

Yeah, it’s a good point.

Yeah, but the forest is a really big delay.

Yeah.

But if a barn is an entire forest, then that certainly explains why it would alter your destination arrival time.

In a couple places in the UK, they have actually named various features of the land Robin’s Barn or Robin Hood’s Barn.

How funny.

Yeah.

Okay, well, I can’t wait to go back to her with the story.

This is awesome.

Yeah. Well, there you go.

Thanks for calling, Gail.

All right.

Thanks for calling.

Okay, you bet.

All right. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

I think that’s a terrific expression for getting to someplace by a circuitous route.

By way of Robinson’s barn?

Yeah, whether it’s literally or figuratively.

Instead of by way of the DOT?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

When somebody doesn’t stop to ask for directions or you’re telling a long, shaggy dog story.

Thanks to the Department of Transportation and eight years of construction.

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