# Dying with your boots on... or off? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 14, 2012, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dying-with-your-boots-on-or-off/615715 "2012-03-14T04:13:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dying-with-your-boots-on-or-off/615715/1 "2012-03-14T04:13:25Z")
Toward the end of the movie [_Support Your Local Gunfighter_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Support_Your_Local_Gunfighter), “Swifty” Morgan (Chuck Conners) accidently shoots himself and spends the rest of the film trying to get his boots off so he won’t have them on at the moment of his death. OTOH, [this cartoon](http://www.gocomics.com/theflyingmccoys/2012/02/05) implies that a Western character _would_ want to die while wearing boots. Was this strictly a matter of preference? I can see why you’d want to die with them _on_ because it implies that you met your end while engaged in manly pursuits rather than in soft-shoed domesticity or barefoot in a hospital bed. But why would a guy like ol’ Swifty prefer to die in his stockings? Does dying with his boots on symbolize his ultimate failure to leave behind the life–and inevitable death–of a gunman and settle down like any decent person should? Or did the screenwriters simply get their wires crossed for the sake of a gag? ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dying-with-your-boots-on-or-off/615715/2 "2012-03-14T04:57:50Z")
Don’t know about the film in question, but over here, dying with your boots off is sometimes used to imply that you were, well, engaged in an activity that typically is not done whist wearing boots, or indeed anything else. It could be that the gag is rather more subtle. This does bring to mind a favourite joke about what a returning soldier was going to do upon returning home. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dying-with-your-boots-on-or-off/615715/3 "2012-03-14T08:56:25Z")
[Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_with_your_boots_on) > [@](#): > > To “Die with your boots on” is an idiom referring to dying while fighting or to die while actively occupied/employed/working or in the middle of some action. A person who dies with their boots on keeps working to the end, as in “He’ll never quit—he’ll die with his boots on.” The implication here is that they died in violence, as in gunfights or by hanging and didn’t die of old age and/or experience of being bedridden with illness, infirmity, etc. > [edit] Origin > > The “Die with your boots on” idiom originates from frontier towns in the 19th century American West. Some sources (e.g. American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms) say that the phrase probably originally alluded to soldiers who died on active duty. The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms says: “Die with your boots on was apparently first used in the late 19th century of deaths of cowboys and others in the American West who were killed in gun battles or hanged.” Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang adds that from the late 17th century until the early 19th century the expression meant ‘to be hanged,’ and from the mid 17th century until the mid 19th century Die in one’s shoes meant the same thing. If you take the phrase to mean “hanged”, you probably wouldn’t want to die with your boots on. If you take it to mean “died while still fit and healthy” then you probably would want to die with your boots on. ---
**Author:** ![GiantRat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@GiantRat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GiantRat)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dying-with-your-boots-on-or-off/615715/4 "2012-03-14T14:22:17Z")
I’d always thought that dying with your boots on implied that you were working/fighting at the time. Dying with your boots off implied being killed in your sleep. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dying-with-your-boots-on-or-off/615715/5 "2012-03-14T15:06:19Z")
Apparently, this is the origin of the name ‘Boot Hill’ (Wild West cemeteries where hanged and otherwise ‘died with their boots on’ types would be buried) ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dying-with-your-boots-on-or-off/615715/6 "2012-03-14T15:19:39Z")
I thought it meant being killed on your feet by usually violent or extreme means, as opposed to dying in a bed of some illness or old age. The character in the OP was probably pulling an Amelia Bedelia and taking it too literally for humor purposes. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dying-with-your-boots-on-or-off/615715/7 "2012-03-14T15:26:15Z")
Hah. I’m sitting here with “Play a Train Song” stuck in my head: "He laughed a little bit louder as he yelled up at the band. " 'Play a train song, pour me one more round. Make ‘em leave my boots on; on the day they lay me down’… … In the television blizzard lights, we looked around his place. A little cold there on the sofa, a little smile across his face. And though I tried with all of my sadness, somehow I just could not weep For a man who looked to me like he died laughin’ in his sleep. Singing a train song, pour him one last round Made 'em leave his boots on, on the day they laid him down…" ---
**Author:** ![dzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f9b8f/32.png) [@dzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzero)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dying-with-your-boots-on-or-off/615715/8 "2012-03-14T18:49:41Z")
Dieing with your boots on means that you did not die of illness, old age, etc. It means that you went down fighting. Once you buy the ranch (a phrase that can mean dieing or just hanging up your spurs), then you will probably not die with your boots on, but it’s still a possibility. ---
**Author:** ![RedSwinglineOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a9adbd/32.png) [@RedSwinglineOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedSwinglineOne)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2012, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dying-with-your-boots-on-or-off/615715/9 "2012-03-14T20:11:32Z")
Iron Maiden’s “Die With Your Boots On” (Chorus) If you’re gonna die, die with your boots on. If you’re gonna try, well stick around, Gonna cry, just move along, If you’re gonna die, you’re gonna die, Gonna die! Die with your boots on, If you’re gonna try, well stick around, Gonna cry, just move along, If you’re gonna die, you’re gonna die! … They died with their boots on, yes they died… They died! They die with their boots on, they die… We die! We die! We die! We die! We die! … ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2012, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dying-with-your-boots-on-or-off/615715/10 "2012-03-15T20:31:43Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > I thought it meant being killed on your feet by usually violent or extreme means, as opposed to dying in a bed of some illness or old age. The character in the OP was probably pulling an Amelia Bedelia and taking it too literally for humor purposes. I don’t know what an Amelia Bedelia is. But yes, it’s possible that taking his boots off somehow symbolizes that he _didn’t_ die by violent or extreme means, that he didn’t end up “like those fellows who died with their boots on”, meaning that they never achieved peace and relaxation in their lives. That theory would need corroboration, because the symbolism of dying with your boots _on_–meaning that your were never “unmanned”–would seem to be far more preferable. > [@Mangetout](#): > > Apparently, this is the origin of the name ‘Boot Hill’ (Wild West cemeteries where hanged and otherwise ‘died with their boots on’ types would be buried) Betcha a feller could dig up a mighty fine pair o’ boots fer hisself.