When Megan in San Diego heard her father say he had to park way out in the back forty, he was using a farm expression for land far from the house, road, or main lot. The Dictionary of American Regional English gives back forty as a remote, large, often arid or barren piece of land. The forty is forty acres, once a common U.S. land division, a quarter of a quarter section. In everyday speech it can be figurative, whether the place is farmland or the far end of a parking lot. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Back Forty” Comes From 40-Acre Land Divisions”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, my name is Megan Bordeaux. I’m calling from San Diego, California.
Well, welcome to the program, Megan. How can we help you?
I have a question. My father always used to say, if he had to park his car really far away from the destination that he was going to, he would say, I had to park the car in the back 40. And I was wondering what the back 40 meant. Where does that come from? Was it the back 40 parking places or what? Yeah, I’m just curious. Where does that come from?
Got some ideas for you.
Okay.
Have you ever heard it used in the expression 40 acres in a mule?
No, I’ve never heard that.
Because the 40 is 40 acres. And I’m looking here at an entry from the Dictionary of American Regional English, and there’s a couple different senses. And this one, I think, is pretty close to what you’re talking about here. A remote, large, but often erred or barren piece of land. But it’s figurative, meaning it might be more or less than 40 acres, but you use 40 as kind of like an approximation of the size of it.
Okay.
So the back 40, it’s like the other acreage, like behind the house or behind the main lot or behind the main road or something like that.
Why 40?
Because 40 acres was a common division of land, a quarter of a quarter section or 16 hectares. And so a lot of times when you would just divvy up a big old chunk of land, let’s say in the 1800s when the American West was still being settled, you might just like draw the line so there are 40-acre lots, one after the other. And you might buy one or two or three or four of these, you know. And a lot of times you’d get them situated on a major river or other water course so that you’d have water for your crops and your cattle, right? And so you would literally have one lot that was kind of like the front lot and the other one was the back lot and that’s your back 40.
Wow.
Does that make sense?
Okay.
So it’s just sort of a figurative expression that’s been handed down from an old unit of measurement.
Wow.
Cool.
Thank you.
Well, thanks for calling with that question.
Thanks for having me on.
Okay, take care.
Thanks.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
Yeah, the 40 acres in a mule grant was the compensation that was supposed to be awarded to freed African-American slaves, right, after the Civil War.
That’s right.
And it sort of became emblematic of failures in Reconstruction, right, because not everybody got 40 acres in a mule.
Yeah, yeah, there was no way to really enforce that. It was one of those things that sounded great, but to get somebody to pay off on that, it took a lot of effort and maybe more gumption than people had.
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