# behind the gym



## rolmich

Hello everybody,
_Biden : I'd like to take Trump '_*behind the gym'*.
Although I understand the meaning of this expression, can you explain where it comes from.
Thanks in advance.


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## Glenfarclas

Why does it have to come from someplace?


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## london calling

What he actually said was: "No, I wish we were in high school, and I could take him behind the gym."

I think it's clear from that that 'behind the gym' is simply somewhere away from prying eyes where you can kick the shit out of someone.


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## rolmich

OK but then why "behind the gym" and not behind the counter or behind the stage for that matter? For what purpose is the name 'gym' used?


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## london calling

Does there have to be a reason, other than the one I gave above? My school for example had four large buildings which housed the school's gyms. I can well imagine it would have been easy to drag a student round the back of one of them and thrash them without being seen.


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## You little ripper!

london calling said:


> I can well imagine it would have been easy to drag a student round the back of one of them and thrash them without being seen.


Maybe he wants to take him in another way!


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## london calling

You little ripper! said:


> Maybe he wants to take him in another way!


Naughty boy!


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## velisarius

The phrase would easily be recognised in a school context as meaning "some out-of-the-way place where I won't get caught beating up, or "kicking the shit out of" (thanks lc), my fellow-student". I imagine it means "behind the building that houses the gym", i.e. outside the gym. 

In BE they talk about "beating someone up behind the bike-sheds" or "smoking behind the bike-sheds". It's a cliche that really means "at school and secretly", and may not literally mean that these activities were done in that specific place.


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## Thomas Tompion

I think it's only because Trump is so sexually forbidding that you are thinking of this as a beating up, though I don't doubt that you are right to do so.

Traditionally I think the phrase has the meaning to which the Little Ripper is alluding.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

Biden said "behind the gym" because Trump referred to his offensive comments as "locker room talk."  In an American high school, the "locker room" would be part of whatever facility housed the gymnasium.


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## rolmich

Thanks all of you for your explanations.
A special thank you to GreenWhiteBlue for his interesting reasoning.
rolmich


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## RM1(SS)

Thomas Tompion said:


> Traditionally I think the phrase has the meaning to which the Little Ripper is alluding.


Not in AE.  I see no reason for it to mean anything but what london and veli have indicated.


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## exgerman

rolmich said:


> A special thank you to GreenWhiteBlue for his interesting reasoning.


GWB's explication is exactly what popped into my head when i read the question.


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## Thomas Tompion

RM1(SS) said:


> Not in AE.  I see no reason for it to mean anything but what london and veli have indicated.


Maybe not.  I was just indicating how the phrase is usually interpreted among the BE-speaking young I have come across, for what that is worth.

These things aren't a matter of reason.

Biden being American, you AE speakers are much more likely to interpret the comment correctly than is a Brit.

Does the phrase have any particular resonance in American schools?  It certainly does in some British, and, it seems, Australian ones.


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## RedwoodGrove

But in high school you'd meet behind the gym (or wherever) to have a fair fistfight. Biden is talking about "taking" Trump in the way a parent or authority figure would. The expression there would be something like "take him behind the shed and give him a good walloping." No?


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## Thomas Tompion

RedwoodGrove said:


> But in high school you'd meet behind the gym (or wherever) to have a fair fistfight. Biden is talking about "taking" Trump in the way a parent or authority figure would. The expression there would be something like "take him behind the shed and give him a good walloping." No?


Sorry, Redwood.  If 'behind the gym' is where children meet for 'a fair fistfight', why is Biden using the phrase 'in the way a parent or authority figure would'?

You left me wondering about that.


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## Myridon

RedwoodGrove said:


> But in high school you'd meet behind the gym (or wherever) to have a fair fistfight. Biden is talking about "taking" Trump in the way a parent or authority figure would. The expression there would be something like "take him behind the shed and give him a good walloping."


Most fights aren't "fair." You go behind the gym so that teachers will not interfere. Often one student involved in the fight is inferior - being bullied or punished (for flirting with a girlfriend perhaps).  In that case, one student would "take" (force) the other student to meet him behind the gym.


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## Malakias

Thomas Tompion: Of course Biden is the authority figure in this case because Trump is a big child that would need to be taught a lesson.


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## Thomas Tompion

Malakias said:


> Thomas Tompion: Of course Biden is the authority figure in this case because Trump is a big child that would need to be taught a lesson.


I think you are expressing a view about Trump, rather than addressing my question.


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## RedwoodGrove

Thomas Tompion said:


> Sorry, Redwood.  If 'behind the gym' is where children meet for 'a fair fistfight', why is Biden using the phrase 'in the way a parent or authority figure would'?
> 
> You left me wondering about that.


Well I was wondering that too. I think that's Jokin' Joe's way of talking for one. He often adopts a kind of folksy tone. Also, given GWB's explanation in post #10, I'd say Biden was adapting what used to be a very common expression to a new situation. Now that my brain is finally activated I recall that the right way to say it is "take him out behind the woodshed." I've also heard "smokehouse".


Myridon said:


> Most fights aren't "fair." You go behind the gym so that teachers will not interfere. Often one student involved in the fight is inferior - being bullied or punished (for flirting with a girlfriend perhaps).  In that case, one student would "take" (force) the other student to meet him behind the gym.


A one-on-one fight is at least theoretically fair. It isn't two against one. The point is that one kid doesn't grab the other kid by the collar and drag him behind the gym and beat him with a stick, unless I'm missing something.


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## Thomas Tompion

I'm glad to hear mention of woodsheds.  'To be up to no good in the woodshed' covers a lot of potentially illegal activity in some British schools.


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## Malakias

Thomas Tompion said:


> I think you are expressing a view about Trump, rather than addressing my question.


I am expressing the Biden's view about Trump so that is the correct context in this case.


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## Malakias

Anyway, this phrase is very interesting since in Finland we have a similar way of saying that somebody ought to be taken behind a sauna, or woodshed. But this does not mean for nicely teaching a lesson but has something to do with an ax and neck, like for a chicken...


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## Myridon

RedwoodGrove said:


> A one-on-one fight is at least theoretically fair. It isn't two against one. The point is that one kid doesn't grab the other kid by the collar and drag him behind the gym and beat him with a stick, unless I'm missing something.


He says, "Meet me behind the gym at 3:15, or else..."  If you are inferior, that is forcibly enough.  Whether the force is peer pressure or threats of something worse, it's not two well-matched boxers agreeing equally to have a civilized boxing match.


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## RedwoodGrove

Myridon said:


> He says, "Meet me behind the gym at 3:15, or else..."  If you are inferior, that is forcibly enough.  Whether the force is peer pressure or threats of something worse, it's not two well-matched boxers agreeing equally to have a civilized boxing match.


I'll go along with that. The scenario you describe is what we normally think of and is certainly not a fair fight.


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## JulianStuart

Myridon said:


> He says, "Meet me behind the gym at 3:15, or else..."  If you are inferior, that is forcibly enough.  Whether the force is peer pressure or threats of something worse, it's not two well-matched boxers agreeing equally to have a civilized boxing match.


I grew up in the UK but our school gym was not a separate building.  There was a building which had several squash courts in  and there were a few "incidents" behind that buiding that fit with current context of beating up


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## london calling

Thomas Tompion said:


> Sorry, Redwood.  If 'behind the gym' is where children meet for 'a fair fistfight', why is Biden using the phrase 'in the way a parent or authority figure would'?


Biden didn't say that. This is the quote in its entirety:

“’Because I’m a billionaire I can do things other people can’t.’ What a disgusting assertion for anyone to make,” Biden said while campaigning for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania. “The press always ask me, don’t I wish I was debating him? No, I wish we were in high school, and I could take him behind the gym. That’s what I wish.”

This is from the Huffington Post website but it is the same on any other websites I have looked at.


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## Thomas Tompion

Well, either way, if he put it like that in the UK, he'd be in danger of provoking amused intentional misunderstanding.


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## london calling

Intentional misunderstanding, precisely. I certainly didn't think he meant that.


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## You little ripper!

Interesting discussion, however my comment in Post 5 was a joke, hence the . In my schooldays in Australia, if it had the meaning of sex, it would have been behind/in the gardener's tool shed, not the gymnasium.


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## london calling

I knew you were joshing, Charles, hence my reply.


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## You little ripper!

london calling said:


> I knew you were joshing, Charles, hence my reply.


Yes, I knew you got it.


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## Copperknickers

Thomas Tompion said:


> I'm glad to hear mention of woodsheds.  'To be up to no good in the woodshed' covers a lot of potentially illegal activity in some British schools.



Not to get too off topic, but what is a 'woodshed'? I can't imagine why a school would need a shed full of wood. In my school we had a bikeshed, not that I can remember there ever being a bike in there. We used it during breaktimes if it was raining (you could fit about half of the school in there, it was quite large).


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## Thomas Tompion

Copperknickers said:


> Not to get too off topic, but what is a 'woodshed'? I can't imagine why a school would need a shed full of wood. In my school we had a bikeshed, not that I can remember there ever being a bike in there. We used it during breaktimes if it was raining (you could fit about half of the school in there, it was quite large).


Where did they keep the firewood dry then, Copperknickers?


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## Copperknickers

Thomas Tompion said:


> Where did they keep the firewood dry then, Copperknickers?



Firewood? My grasp of domestic 20th century history is a little hazy, but I thought that heating a large building with fires went out with the Victorians? My school was 100 years old and it didn't have a fireplace, it had central heating.


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## Malakias

Not to get too off topic, but central heating can have wood as the energy source. Eventhough the heat is distributed to radiators by hot water, the heating of the water in a boiler room can be done by burning wood. There are even modern houses using this method, but not usually in a city, where district heating is the most common.


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## Hermione Golightly

As they say, "I wish I could unsee that image" or unread those words. Now I'll spend too much time trying to dispell a most disgusting image from my mind.


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## RedwoodGrove

Malakias said:


> Not to get too off topic, but central heating can have wood as the energy source. Eventhough the heat is distributed to radiators by hot water, the heating of the water in a boiler room can be done by burning wood. There are even modern houses using this method, but not usually in a city, where district heating is the most common.


Ah, gone are the days when you could burn wood freely around here.


Hermione Golightly said:


> As they say, "I wish I could unsee that image" or unread those words. Now I'll spend too much time trying to dispell a most disgusting image from my mind.


Do you mean the "behind the woodshed" image? Sorry.


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## ewie

Being a young Britishperson like Mr Tompion and Ms Golightly, I'm afraid the 'take him by force' thing was the first that came into my head too.

I suspect that in order to avoid puerile sniggering a Britishperson, if he'd actually _planned _his utterance, would say instead *meet*_ him behind the bike shed._


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## Thomas Tompion

ewie said:


> Being a young Britishperson like Mr Tompion and Ms Golightly, I'm afraid the 'take him by force' thing was the first that came into my head too.
> 
> I suspect that in order to avoid puerile sniggering a Britishperson, if he'd actually _planned _his utterance, would say instead *meet*_ him behind the bike shed._


This is no time for equivocation Mr E.

By 'take him by force' are you talking about sexual assault?  Couldn't the sexual interaction be consensual? or are we back to fisticuffs?


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## ewie

It sounds fairly unconsensual to me, Mr T


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## Thomas Tompion

I suppose that's because of the verb (to take), rather than the location.


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## ewie

Oh yes, folks can be taken anywhere, even in downstairs corridors, I believe.


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## heypresto

It appears that Biden's gym is Trump's barn.

“Did you see where Biden wants to take me behind a barn? . . . He wants to bring me to the back of the barn? Oooooooooh."


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## JulianStuart

heypresto said:


> It appears that Biden's gym is Trump's barn.
> 
> “Did you see where Biden wants to take me behind a barn? . . . He wants to bring me to the back of the barn? Oooooooooh."


The other use of take (in #6 above) is perhaps another reason some/many AE speakers prefer to use _bring_ all the time, and eschew the word "take" even when they are "going" somewhere - I'll bring my umbrella when I go out tomorrow".  Biden seems to be one of those who retain the distinction between bring and take.

(For an international discussion see for example : Bring/Take - Irish English)


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