Your Neck of the Woods: How and where did this saying come about?

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people used to say neck to describe a home or land owned by a single founder, this was from when woods covered much land. they would often cut through others property to reach a destination quicker, so they would say "im going up to his your neck of the woods" to tell u they were cutting thru ur property...Show more

I am not sure, but my Grand parents and Parents always used to say it. It's just folksy.

TV weatherman Al Roker of the Today Show always introduces the local station's weather report by saying: "And here's what's happening in your neck of the woods." Where does the phrase neck of the woods come from?
Thanksgiving brings to mind American pioneer settlements, so I decided to follow the holiday with this traditional American expression. Of course, many inanimate objects have necks: tools, bottles, bones, cannons and violins to name a few. In nature, neck has referred to any narrow strip of water, ice or trees. So, originally, neck of the woods meant a stretch of woodland.

Sometime in the first half of the 19th century, people started referring to the settlements in remote wooded areas as a particular neck of the woods. The first print evidence of the expression is in 1839: "In this neck of the woods" (Sprit of Times 15 June 175/2, 1839). In a book of Americanisms, De Vere writes about the American pioneer: "He will. . .find his neighborhood designated as a neck of the woods, that being the name applied to any settlement made in the well-wooded parts of the South-west especially" (Americanisms: The English of the New World, 1871).

Today, the expression is alive and well in almost every neck of the woods, though it no longer solely indicates a remote settlement. Neck of the woods now refers to any neighborhood, area or region. It is sometimes shortened to neck as in Wainright's Devil you Don't: "In this neck, I say what. I also say when."...Show more

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Your Neck of the Woods: How and where did this saying come about?...Show more

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Stop yourself if you've heard this one before....Show more