| 词源 |
barn; barnstorming. The Old English bere, “barley,” com- bined with ern, “storage,” gives us the word barn, which was originally a place to store grain. Only in early America did the barn become a joint grain storage place and animal stable, American barns becoming so big that they spawned sayings like You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn and as big as a barn. Eventually we had car barns, furniture barns, and antique barns. Barnstorming, first applied in 1815 to a theatrical troupe’s performances in upstate New York barns, has come to mean tours of rural areas by political candidates. |