Adair in Fort Worth, Texas, says that her mother said that when traveling a dangerous stretch of road she and her husband almost bought the ranch, meaning they came close to having a fatal wreck. The more common phrase is bought the farm. Originating around the time of World War II, the phrase he bought it or he bought a packet referred to a pilot in a deadly crash. The phrase to buy the farm most likely refers to the plot of land that is one’s final resting place. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Buy the Farm Origin”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi.
Hi, who’s this?
This is Adair. I’m calling from Fort Worth, Texas.
Well, welcome, Adair. What can we do for you?
So, my mom, a couple weeks ago, used a very strange phrase that I’d never heard before.
And she was using it to describe this experience she had on a road trip with my dad.
And they were in Louisiana, and the roads were really bad.
It was nighttime and it was raining and she said, oh, honey, it was so scary.
Your dad and I almost bought the ranch a couple times.
I was like, bought the ranch?
What does that mean?
I understood what she meant by the context.
I understood that she thought she was going to crash.
But I just was like, what is a ranch doing in a car story?
I don’t understand.
Did she feel like she was going to die?
Yes.
Okay.
So it was very serious.
Yes, and she was driving.
Which made it even scarier. And that was new to you, to have someone to say, I nearly bought the ranch. That was a new experience for you.
Yeah. And it was even, I mean, maybe I’ve heard it before, but I couldn’t recall ever hearing it.
And what was even stranger is I’d never heard her use it before. And I feel like with these phrases you hear, you know, your mom or dad use, they’ve used it many, many times before, but it was completely new to me.
We can sort this through for you.
Thank you. There’s a more common variant of this, which is to buy the farm. Do you know that one?
I’ve heard that, but I didn’t immediately make the connection.
So as far as a word historian would be concerned, they’re considered the same, just a variance of each other.
And there’s an interesting history that goes back to World War II and earlier, where when aircraft would crash, the pilot might be said to have bought it.
And usually it meant that they died.
And there was another form to buy a packet.
And the packet in this case, it’s uncertain what it refers to, but the best sources that I know say if you bought a packet, you were buying passage for your body to be sent home by packet ship, so from wherever the front was.
In any case, by the 1950s, to buy it had showed up in American English as the longer form of to buy the farm.
And there’s some stories out there that I won’t repeat here because they really don’t have a lot of evidence.
But the best explanation for this is when you buy the farm, it means that you’re taking the dirt nap.
You are getting that six-foot-deep plot of land that you are going to lie in for eternity.
That’s your farm, a worm farm.
So grim.
Yeah, it is grim.
Indeed.
Absolutely grim.
So it’s all about the final resting place in the earth that you would have if you died, if something bad were to happen.
Fascinating.
And, you know, it’s interesting.
So I resisted Googling this phrase, but my husband could not because we were talking about it.
And a couple nights ago, we took our grandmothers to dinner, and we were kind of hashing out this phrase.
And, you know, I said, you know, have you guys heard this phrase, bought the ranch?
And they go, oh, yeah, bought the farm.
And it actually led into a conversation about wartime in World War II.
Wow.
So that makes a whole lot of sense.
Absolutely.
Nice.
So they heard it during that period of time?
Mm—
And that’s the first time that they could recall hearing that phrase, and specifically bought the farm.
There is one story out there that I want to kind of squash a little bit, even though there are some slang authorities who like it.
And it’s the idea that the term comes from that if a plane were to crash on somebody’s land, say a farmer’s land, then the ruin caused would allow the farmer to sue the military or the Air Force and then get reparations in order to pay off their mortgage for the land, which is entirely too complicated for that to be the truth.
It really is just about that plot of land, which can jokingly be called your farm or your ranch, which is where your body lies with the tombstone above.
Wowza.
What an interesting parade.
I knew you guys would think of something.
Adair, we’re so glad you called.
Thanks for calling.
We’re glad your mom’s okay.
Yeah.
Tell her hi for us.
I know.
She’s fine.
She just gets nervous driving at night.
Well, tell her hi and everybody else, the grandmothers.
Take care.
I will.
All right.
All right.
Thank you guys so much.
Okay.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye, Adair.
Bye.
