"Bet the Farm"

[bapopik at AOL.COM]

BET THE FARM--252,000 Google hits
BET THE RANCH--44,000 Google hits
...
I gotta look into "bet the ranch." Any help appreciated (I'm now in the Dominican Republic with still mroe family matters).
...


-----Original Message-----
From: fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Sent: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 10:00 AM
Subject: "Bet the Farm"


In a Supreme Court opinion yesterday, Justice Scalia used the expression
"bet the farm." A journalist is asking me about this phrase. Can anyone
point me to any good information, or even give a hunch, as to the
derivation of this expression?

Fred Shapiro

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred R. Shapiro Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS
  Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press
Yale Law School ISBN 0300107986
e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
________________________________________________________________________
Check out the new AOL.  Most comprehensive set of free safety and security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from across the web, free AOL Mail and more.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org