barrow/borrow

[Donald M. Lance]

For what it's worth (probably not much!), I remember as a teenager (or early twenties)
wondering about this term (also in South Texas).  Mostly, I heard 'bar ditch' and 'bar
pit', but apparently I heard 'borrow/barrow ditch' as well, because I distinctly remember
wondering about the spelling.  I think the question arose when my older brother used 'bar
pit' to refer to the caliche pit two miles north of our house.  I didn't think 'borrow'
made sense because there was never any intention of returning the dirt or gravel to the
ditch or pit location.  I had seen 'barrow' in literature but wasn't quite sure what it
meant since we used terms like 'levee' or 'border' for barrows.  When I was in Avebury,
Wiltshire (about 20 miles from Stonehenge) in June 1999, standing on the barrow
surrounding the stones laid out in a large pattern in an open field, the question came
back to my mind, but I knew I was standing on something that would be called a barrow and
the source of the term was clear.  'Borrow ditch/pit' as far as I'm concerned must be a
folk relexification.  The term 'borry ditch' doesn't work, so 'borrow' doesn't fit in
South Midland, where 'bar ditch' is the common pronunciation.
DMLance

Rudolph C Troike wrote:

> I've heard only the form "borrow ditch" in Texas used to describe the
> ditch along a roadside created by taking the soil out to form the roadbed.
> However, I always suspected it of being a folk-etymological back-formation
> from "bar-ditch", which was the form I heard first. (Phonologically, there
> would be no difference there in the vowel to hinder this identification.)
>
>         Rudy