Robin Hood’s Barn

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Grant. This is Reverend Ruth from Shelsburg, Pennsylvania.

I came across a phrase that I have used all my life that some of my folks here at the church that I’m the pastor of weren’t familiar with when I used it, and the phrase was, by way of Robin Hood’s barn.

And you would use that how?

Well, I would use it to mean the long way, the scenic way, or by any way other than the most direct route, which comes from my family, which is from Texas and New York, and both sides use it approximately the same way.

Really? Both sides?

Both sides.

And the first time I remember hearing the phrase, I was about six years old, and my grandmother and I had been at the store, and we went into their house in Texas.

And my grandfather looked up and said, what’d you do, come home by way of Robin Hood’s barn?

Love it.

And, of course, I look and go, what does that mean?

And he said, well, that just means the long way.

And, of course, my grandmother said, no, we just stopped to talk to everybody.

And then later that same summer, my grandfather in Florida and I were going out, and we were going someplace that I knew how to get to on Route 1, which is the Dixie Highway, and we didn’t go to Route 1.

We went some other way.

I said, Gramps, why are we doing this?

And he said, because this time of day it’s easier to go by Robin Hood’s barn.

Oh, my gosh.

So you’ve had this all your life, and you’ve used it with other people, and they just looked at you like.

Yeah.

And, you know, I’ve used it. I’ve lived in Massachusetts. I’ve, you know, lived in other parts of the country, and people never seemed to blink an eye at it.

But I said this, and we were coming home, ironically enough, by way of country roads.

And, you know, we were just talking about how beautiful those roads were and what a pleasurable thing it was to drive along.

I said, yeah, I love these old roads where you can go by way of Robin Hood’s barn to get to places and not really going out of the way.

Yeah.

And it was just these blank stairs.

Isn’t this a wonderful expression, Grant?

I love it. When you say it, people sometimes don’t know what you’re talking about and say so, but sometimes they just don’t say anything.

Do you think they’re just letting you go by with that because they think it’s something you made up on the spot, or do you think that they’re understanding you?

I think they’re understanding me, but maybe they’re not.

It’s hard to tell because there is that propensity of people not to let on that they don’t know what you’re talking about.

Exactly.

You’re calling for relief. You want to know that you’re not a crazy woman who says crazy things.

Oh, well, yeah, especially since I got it from two different sides of the family.

Well, you know, craziness is inherited, so.

Well, that is true.

I am in the ministry, and it sometimes goes hand in hand.

Oh, yeah?

The reason we know it’s interesting is because we can tell you a few things about it.

Well, that’s good.

Yeah, I mean, it’s pretty straightforward.

If you think about it, you know, Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor, and he lived out there in Sherwood Forest, and so he kept his stuff out there.

And so if you’re talking about Robin Hood’s barn, it’s sort of figurative.

It’s all this big expanse.

So if you’re going around Robin Hood’s barn or going all through Robin Hood’s barn, it’s a lot of ground to cover.

Well, exactly.

I know that it doesn’t go all the way back to the time of Robin Hood, which I think was, what, the 12th, 13th century, something like that?

Yeah, time of King Richard and King John.

Yeah, but it’s a pretty old expression.

Right.

The first use that I can find of it is from a Philadelphia magazine called The Reflector in 1806.

And I’m looking at the newspaper databases here, it’s a fairly standard use, but they don’t give any clue as to when or where it originated.

And, you know, obviously it’s older than that.

This is just the first printed use that we can find.

So we’re talking about an expression that’s more than 200 years old.

So that’s another thing I like about this.

It’s very interesting to me that you can know it and your family can know it, but so many people don’t, even though it’s that old.

It does appear pretty quickly by, I think, the 1850s in the United Kingdom.

It’s possible that it originated there.

When we’re talking about stuff that’s more than 200 years old, the cultural meshing of the United Kingdom and the United States of America was much different then.

We were more intermeshed.

So it’s possible that it originated there.

Yeah, well, Ruth, I think we’ve kind of gone all around Robin Hood’s barn here, but we’ve given you some stuff to work with, huh?

Well, that’s very helpful.

Now I don’t feel quite like when I get funny looks like, you know, I’m using something that’s unique to us.

That’s right.

Just give them a funny look back.

Walk tall, Revin, walk tall.

Yeah.

All right. Well, Ruth, thanks for calling.

Thank you.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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