shotgun shack, shotgun house, railroad flat, etc

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Thu, Sep 22, 2005 at 04:22:57PM -0500, Mullins, Bill wrote:
>  A discussion today in the letters of Jim Romanesko's media blog:
>
> http://poynter.org/forum/default.asp?id=32178
>
> brings up "shotgun shack" (is it a redneck term?), "shotgun house",
> "railroad flat", and "railroad apartment".
>
> Shotgun shack (Not in OED)

[...]

> Shotgun house (Not in OED)

[...]

Actually, both are in OED, covered by _shot-gun_ sense 3.b.,
"Designating a house or other building with rooms set in a
line on either side of a long central hallway," which has
cites for ~ dwelling house, ~ building, ~ house, ~ shanty,
and ~ shack.

But we're way late on this, with the first quot. only from
1938.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED