barn-burner?

[stickyfingers]

With the NCAA games taking over the television air waves, I have been hearing this term a lot....After a discussion with some friends I threw out the idea as to the origin of this term...this is what i came up with:

It started a long time ago when many areas were dependent on farming. If a barn happened to catch on fire I would imagine that anyone within seeing range would either go to the scene or watch it as it happened. This happens nowadays also. In a neighborhood if a house or building or restaurant catches fire you will see a number of people standing around and watching it...usually till its done but normally for a good amount of time.....Therefore if a game is a barnburner, it means that people who can see it will watch it untill its over whereas if the game were a blowout, they would not care to watch it as much.

Am I on to something here?





"lemme tell ya sumpin" -CW

[HordeKing1]

Interesting hypothesis.

My understanding is that the term "Barnburner" was first used to denote the shortsighted and foolish. Supposedly it had to do with a local legend about a farmer who burned doww his barn to rid it of rats.

It was used in politics to describe abolitionists in the Democratic Party who were said to be willing to "burn down the barn," (destroy their party) in order to rid it of pro-slavery "rats."

Later the term was used to describe something exciting, such as a barn fire or train wreck which where terrible but excciting to the spectators.

Barnburner was first used in "sports" to describe an good hand of cards. Now it's usage has expanded to include anything that is exciting, from sports to politcis.



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[Dewey]

Sorry to shoot down your hypothesis, Stick-man, but the term "barn-burner" actually originates from the middle ages. The phrase began as "bard-burner". If a joust went particularly well, the townsfolk celebrated by roasting the nearest bard at the stake.

Later, the term was resurrected in Oklahoma, where the only bard that was so burned was the one that came up with the phrase "Oklahoma is OK". A law was soon passed outlawing human sacrifice, hence barn-burning came into fashion as a way of celebrating victories.

Hope this clears things up.

<IMG SRC="http://www.agw-werbeartikel.de/images/easy-rider.jpg"><br>"Still searching for America."