Barrow Pit

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Yes, good morning. This is Leslie Kane.

Hi, Leslie, how are you doing?

I am doing well.

Where are you calling us from?

Fort Laramie, Wyoming.

What can we do for you?

I grew up, I was born and raised in western Nebraska.

And since that time, I’ve probably lived in Colorado and South Dakota and Wyoming, Iowa.

So in Nebraska, we always called the ditch on the side of the road the borrow pit, referring to you borrow from the pit to make the road.

Now, my family was in construction, but since I lived in Nebraska, I’ve not heard that term.

And I’ll say it to people, and they go, the borrow pit? What are you talking about?

And what do they call it?

I don’t know whether anyone’s ever, I don’t know whether it’s very, very localized, or because my family was in construction, they just said that.

But in Scottswuff and Gearing, Nebraska, which is where I was raised, that’s what we called it.

So this is the ditch that runs alongside the road.

Yes.

Like a raised road.

Yes.

Yeah.

And what did they call it if they didn’t call it a borrow pit?

I think just a ditch, the road ditch.

Okay.

Yeah, those things go by lots of different names, including gutter and greater ditch.

You’re not the only person who uses borrow pit by any stretch of the imagination.

Yes, yes.

I’ve just lived places that didn’t use it.

Well, it’s not common in most of the United States, but there is one part of the country where it’s far more common.

And that is the West.

Yeah, it’s where you live.

It’s the Rocky Mountains, Nebraska, Wyoming, all around in there.

Yeah, I think the more common version of this is barrow pit, barrow meaning a mound, because, you know, if you’re digging, then the dirt has to go someplace and it forms a mound.

And so we think that it may be that that barrow pit is a version of that, you know, sort of by by what we call folk etymology, that exactly what you said.

My grandmother was an English teacher, and I remember asking her, how do I spell that?

Because I had to write something.

And I actually thought it was B-A at the time, and she told me B-O, but, you know.

Oh, how interesting.

My sister and I have been talking about this, and it’s just taken me a while to get to you and ask.

Yeah, so that origin story of being about borrowing dirt from one place to put in another is a folk etymology.

It’s not really the origin of it.

It does come from barrow, B-A-R-R-O-W, meaning a mound of earth.

But it’s a really obvious, like, natural thing to assume that it’s the more familiar word to borrow, B-O-R-R-O-W.

That’s interesting, really interesting.

I appreciate knowing that.

Now I can say when people say, where did you get that?

I can, you know, with confidence say there are other people that say that in the world.

Absolutely.

I appreciate your help.

Leslie, we’re glad to help.

Thanks for calling us.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

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