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Comment by zabzonk | Hacker News Reader

There are other problems. My Dad had an engine fire in his RAF Vampire over East England, didn't have an ejector seat, and decided it would be better to belly-land the thing, which he did, succesfully, in a cabbage field.

He got out of the Vampire and trudged over to an old yokel who had been sitting watching all this.

Dad: Is there a phone around here?

Yokel: You'm will be paying for all them cabbages?

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Hence the old term "bought the farm" for a crash landing.

Fascinating, I always thought this referenced retiring on a farm.

Close. The term originates from payments the War Department (now DoD) made to families after someone died in combat. In some cases the payment was enough for the family to pay off the mortgage, so the dead person was said to have "bought the farm."

Exact origin is obscure. Some think it relates to paying a farmer, some that it refers to a death benefit.

Hmm. Was the farmer compensated?

No idea. I'm not sure he should have been, but he very probably was - but my Dad was risking his life to protect the farmer, so Dad would not have paid for it. And as far as I know people were compensated for RAF crashes on their property - they certainly are now today, though RAF pilots do everything they can (up to their own deaths) to avoid militraliry accidents.

How was he risking his life to protect the farmer?

> I'm not sure he should have been, but he very probably was - but my Dad was risking his life to protect the farmer

Why not? It's not your father who should compensate the farmer but the government. And if government property causes damages to a citizen's livelihood, then the government should compensate them. At least, in a civilized democracy.

And that's happens in the UK. Of course, the farmer has to put in a claim, and I mean't that I do not know if he did so.

Hence:

> but he very probably was

I think you're missing a comma:

> I'm not sure he should have been

> I'm not sure, he should have been

Otherwise it reads like you think he shouldn't have been compensated.

> my Dad was risking his life to protect the farmer

The farmer is an equal citizen with equal rights, regardless - that is what the pilot was protecting.

This is supposedly where the idiom "bought the farm" comes from.

I don't think so. It came from the life insurance paying off the family farm (if I understand correctly).

Closer to "not in my backyard", until and unless it absolutely and directly benefits ME

A lot of people sure don't get British humour, with a 'u'.

A reaction like that implies that the farmer was screwed over in a previous incident or has heard of someone that was.

Or, more likely, perhaps he just has a typically dry British sense of humor.

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