# Bark anything but your shin? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 3, 2004, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bark-anything-but-your-shin/267336 "2004-10-03T16:43:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bark-anything-but-your-shin/267336/21 "2004-10-05T05:20:49Z")
I would use “bark” for a wound that removed a broad area of epidermis, rather than a “scrape,” which would be a similar injury but that went deeper rather than wider. ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bark-anything-but-your-shin/267336/22 "2004-10-05T14:09:40Z")
> [@](#): > > _Fat Bald Guy_ > OK, I’m totally baffled by this one. I’ve heard the word “counterpane” in an old poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, and never known what it meant, but what is an “item of manchester”? (Please have patience with us ignerunt Mericuns.) A _counterpane_ is a bedspread. _Manchester_ is household linen and cotton items. Towels and pillowcases may be found in the manchester department of big shops here. Presumably because they used to be mass-produced there. IIRC this was a term that I was not familiar with prior to coming to Australia. I’m getting the feeling that \*\*Qadgop \*\* thinks I’m a malingerer. ---
**Author:** ![violacrane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c57346/32.png) [@violacrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/violacrane)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2004, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bark-anything-but-your-shin/267336/23 "2004-10-05T19:37:39Z")
Reading this thread it occurs to me that I would rarely refer to _shins_ unless they had been barked, scraped or whatever. As to counterpanes, yes bedspreads, but to my southerern english thinking, made of cotton, silk etc rather than anything fluffy or wooly. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2004, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bark-anything-but-your-shin/267336/24 "2004-10-06T00:43:44Z")
> [@hawthorne](#): > > I’m getting the feeling that \*\*Qadgop \*\* thinks I’m a malingerer. Only if you took the next two days off work! 😃 And thanks, **AskNott**. With the sort of base I can build here, I hope to one day achieve my goal as a syndicated medical confabulist,… I mean _columnist_! [He’s making it up as he goes along!](http://arago4.tn.utwente.nl/stonedead/movies/life-of-brian/ra/17-07.ra) ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2004, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bark-anything-but-your-shin/267336/25 "2004-10-06T00:52:34Z")
I’ve only ever heard the verb “bark” used in connection with one’s shin. ---
**Author:** ![h\_lulu\_chaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@h\_lulu\_chaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/h_lulu_chaos)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2011, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bark-anything-but-your-shin/267336/26 "2011-11-18T22:29:27Z")
I barked my shin yesterday. Lost some skin and got a deep blue bruise. I thought about the use of the word barked in this phrase and considered both the sound I made when I smacked my shin into a hard object and the loss of some skin, like the bark of a tree. I never bark any other part of my body. my neighbor has never heard the term used to describe that accident. I think it is poetic and rich. ---
**Author:** ![PandaBear77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@PandaBear77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PandaBear77)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2011, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bark-anything-but-your-shin/267336/27 "2011-11-18T23:24:42Z")
I’d never heard that expression before today. ---
**Author:** ![Spud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spud/32/347_2.png) [@Spud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spud)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2011, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bark-anything-but-your-shin/267336/28 "2011-11-18T23:27:22Z")
> [@PandaBear77](#): > > I’d never heard that expression before today. I first heard it on October 3rd 2004. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bark-anything-but-your-shin/267336/29 "2011-11-19T00:45:40Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > I’ve heard it applied to knuckles, when bone is exposed. Jesus, your work environment has made you hard. (I am a soft Canuck - when we bark our shins or knuckles, it usually means that just the barest amount of skin has come up. That little onionskin epidermis plane…) ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bark-anything-but-your-shin/267336/30 "2011-11-19T02:05:05Z")
I’ve never heard ‘bark’ used to mean an abrasion injury. One may scrape a shin or skin an elbow but bark is new to me. ---
**Author:** ![Cub\_Mistress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea666f/32.png) [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bark-anything-but-your-shin/267336/31 "2011-11-19T03:13:05Z")
I’ve heard counterpane to mean bedspread here in the rural South (US). I’ve also heard of people barking shins, knuckles, knees and elbows. Manchester meaning items of domestic linens is something I’m completely unfamiliar with. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bark-anything-but-your-shin/267336.md?page=1)