[00:10.75]Now, the VOA Special English program,
[00:14.65]WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.
[00:17.11]In the early days of human history,
[00:20.62]people survived by hunting wild animals,
[00:24.17]or gathering wild grains and plants for food.
[00:28.83]Then, some people learned to grow crops
[00:33.58]and raise animals for food.
[00:36.73]They were the first farmers.
[00:39.93]Since the sixteenth century,
[00:42.79]the word farm has meant agricultural land.
[00:47.78]But a much older meaning
[00:50.28]of the word farm is linked to economics.
[00:54.33]The word farm comes from the Latin word, firma,
[00:59.48]which means an unchanging payment.
[01:02.93]Experts say the earliest meaning of the English word farm
[01:08.98]was a yearly payment made as a tax or rent.
[01:15.12]Farmers in early England
[01:18.49]did not own their land.
[01:21.05]They paid every year to use agricultural lands.
[01:26.10]In England,
[01:27.74]farmers used hawthorn trees along the edges of property.
[01:33.65]They called this row of hawthorns a hedge.
[01:38.50]Hedging fields was how careful farmers marked and protected them.
[01:45.86]Soon, people began to use the word hedging to describe steps
[01:52.82]that could be taken to protect against financial loss.
[01:57.86]Hedging is common among gamblers who make large bets.
[02:04.31]A gambler bets a lot of money on one team.
[02:08.52]But, to be on the safe side,
[02:12.03]he also places a smaller bet on the other team,
[02:17.23]to reduce a possible loss.
[02:19.97]You might say that someone is hedging his bet
[02:24.18]when he invests in several different kinds of businesses.
[02:29.77]One business may fail, but likely not all.
[02:35.38]Farmers know that it is necessary to make hay while the sun shines.
[02:42.68]Hay has to be cut and gathered when it is dry.
[02:47.58]So a wise farmer never postpones gathering his hay
[02:53.57]when the sun is shining. Rain may soon appear.
[02:58.97]A wise person copies the farmer.
[03:02.67]He works when conditions are right.
[03:06.07]A new mother, for example,
[03:09.66]quickly learns to try to sleep when her baby is quiet,
[03:15.22]even in the middle of the day.
[03:18.06]If the mother delays, she may lose her chance to sleep.
[03:23.08]So, the mother learns to make hay while the sun shines.
[03:29.33]Beans are a popular farm crop.
[03:33.88]But beans are used to describe something of
[03:37.79]very little value in the expression,
[03:41.69]not worth a hill of beans.
[03:44.85]The expression is often used today.
[03:48.04]You could say, for example,
[03:51.00]that a bad idea is not worth a hill of beans.
[03:56.30]Language expert Charles Earle Funk said
[04:01.76]the expression was first used almost seven hundred years ago.
[04:07.41]He said Robert of Gloucester described a message
[04:12.07]from the King of Germany to King John of England
[04:16.97]as altogether not worth a bean.
[04:22.84](MUSIC)
[04:32.51]This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES,
[04:41.90]was written by Marilyn Rice Christiano.
[04:44.90]Maurice Joyce was the narrator.
[04:47.75]I'm Shirley Griffith.