During Ravens’ games my sons and I will text back and forth about various plays and scoring in the game.
Yesterday in the third quarter when the Ravens began to pull away from Houston, Brady was very succinct when he texted simply “Woodshed” and included the following:
It got me thinking about the whole “being taken to the woodshed” and wondered just where that originated. Of course I knew all about the concept of being taken to the woodshed to get the hell beat out of you. I always thought that it had more to do with the wood being in there to beat you with.
However, as this explanation details, one was taken to the woodshed in order to keep the beating private and out of view (click here for following excerpt🙂
It’s an old phrase regarding being punished away from view of others. Of course, a woodshed would be set away from the main house, for fire safety reasons (I think). When a child would misbehave, parent or disciplinarian would take them behind the building and give a spanking or a beating.
Growing up at Buzzy’s Country Store we never had a woodshed. When Buzzy needed to administer a whoopin’ he would just take my Brother Steve and me out on the back porch to spank us. (He would never dole out the punishment in front of customers in the store because, I assume, he figured out that that made for some bad optics. Customers standing around watching while you spank your kids is probably not the best business model to pursue.)
So bottom line (no pun intended) I am proposing that we now replace “taken to the woodshed” with “taken to the back porch.” Sounds a little better doesn’t it?
Nice little woodshed tune here for you: