Abstract
I first heard the term borrow pit during a visit to Spalding, Saskatchewan in the late 1940s, when the adjacent highway was being rebuilt to modern specifications, asphalt surfacing and all. A short time earlier, my brotherin-law had given the Department of Highways permission to remove from one of his fields near the road a large amount of fill to be used in building up the roadbed. He was left with an enormous pit, which later became valuable to him as a man-made watering-hole for his cattle and a pond for his geese; that is, it became a dugout, of which there are many on the prairies. I later learned that there were thousands of such pits strung along the railways and highways (and nowadays pipelines) of Canada.1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
See The Canadian Geographical Journal, July 1967, 6.3: “The building of highways has both beneficial and adverse effects [on the duck population]. Some ditches and many borrow pits act as artificial potholes.”.
This familiar sight of bygone years is preserved by a photograph which I have seen in several places, the most recent being The Canadian Geographical Journal, January, 1961,15. These stationmen also have their monument: “[A] magnificent cairn [was] erected. to the memory of the pick-shovel-and-wheelbarrow brigades that built the railway. Its bronze tablets bear the words of Kipling’s’ sons of Martha’—that taut tribute to the sometimes forgotten legion of those who move mountains otherwise than by prayer.” (Stevens, 1962, Vol. 2, p. 449).
As with barrow pit, NID3 labels bar pit and bar ditch “chiefly west.” The last-mentioned term is attested by Robert C. Cowser (1963) of Texas Christian University. The second term is said to be “a corrupted form” of the first, which is not identified with barrow pit; but then NID3 does not make the identification either, in spite of the identical definition in both places. Cowser’s brief note is of no help in illuminating the complex problem under discussion here.
The present generation of young people are moving toward [ε] in such words as marrow, barrow, Harry, marry. The transfer here proposed took place some two generations ago before the displacing of [æ] by [ε] in such words was as widespread as it is now in Canada.
This substitution of [æ] for [ɔ] is evident in this citation by Allen (1961, p. 103): “We said ‘I barrows first’ for first turn at bat.” When I was a kid in Toronto, we said “borrows” but Allen came from the east end of the city. Similar evidence would not be hard to find. The EDD, under barrow-pence, has a citation spelled borrow-pence (“coins found in a tumulus”), an instance, I assume, of the reverse process.
The French calque does not appear in Littré’s (1873) Dictionnaire Française, having been picked up and supported with a citation by later editors. It does appear in Hatzfeld and Darmestetter’s (1964) French dictionary; whether it appears in the 1871 version I have not yet been able to determine. The Spanish Diccionario de la Lengua Espanola gives a definition of préstamo equating with the meaning of borrow(ing) pit: “un camino.” The German Materialgrube is outside the calque pattern, judging from the gloss for borrow pit in Maret-Sander Encyclopoedic English-German Dictionary.
The translation dictionaries in which I found these Romance equivalents of borrow pit are as follows: Daviault (1945); The Follett/Zanichelli Italian Dictionary; and Williams (1956).
References
Allen, R.T. When Toronto was for kids. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1961.
Avis, W. S., and others. The senior dictionary. Toronto: Gage, 1967.(a).
Avis, W. S. (Ed.). A dictionary of Canadianisms on historical principles. Toronto: Gage, 1967.(b).
Cowser, R. C. From ‘borrow ditch’ to ‘bar ditch.’ American Speech 1963, 37, 157.
Daviault, P. (Ed.). Military dictionary, English-French, French-English. Ottowa: King’s Printer, 1945.
Diccionario de la lengua espaDZola. Madrid, 1956.
Dictionnaire française. Paris, 1873.
Fleming, S. The intercolonial. A historical sketch of the inception, location, construction and completion of the line of railway uniting the Inland and Atlantic Provinces of the Dominion, with maps and numerous illustrations. Montreal: Dawson Brothers, 1876.
Fleming, S. Report and documents in reference to the Canadian Pacific Railway. Ottowa: Department of Railways and Canals, 1880.
Follett/Zanichelli Italian dictionary. Chicago: Follett, 1968.
Hatzfeld, A., & Darmestetter, A. Dictionnaire général de la langue française. Paris, 1964. King, C. Saskatchewan harvest. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1955.
Littré. Dictionnaire française. Paris, 1873.
Marchand, H. The categories and types of present-day English word-formation. A synchronic-diachronic approach (2nd ed.). Munich: C. H. Beck’sche, 1969.
Maret-Sander encyclopoedic English-German dictionary. New York, 1931.
Merritt, F. S. (Ed.). Standard handbook for civil engineers. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968.
Pottinger, D. [Reports, correspondence, and miscellaneous papers relating to the] I[nter-] C[olonial] R[ailway], H[alifax] & W[indsor], and Pictou Extension, 1844–60 (Vol. 1); and I.C.R., 1861–67, N[ova] S[cotia] Railway [and the] W[indsor] & A[nnapolis] Railway, 1861–67 (Vol. 2). Halifax: after 1869.
Stevens, C. R. Canadian national railways. Toronto: Clark-Irwin, 1962.
Williams, E. B. (Ed.) The Holt Spanish and English dictionary. New York: Holt, 1956.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1984 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Avis, W.S. (1984). Notes on Borrow(ing) Pit. In: Raphael, L.J., Raphael, C.B., Valdovinos, M.R. (eds) Language and Cognition. Cognition and Language: A Series in Psycholinguistics. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0381-5_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0381-5_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4899-0383-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-0381-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive