In the immortal “Lumberjack Song”, the singer says he likes to press wild flowers, wear women’s clothing, and hang around in bars. For Brits, does the word “bar” connote a gay bar, with the word “pub” indicating more the typical drinking place that anyone might go to? Or does the word “bar” mean something else again?
pub = public house
bar = the table they serve at where the beer pumps and stuff are bars also used to be where the acused stood in a court of law it may have changed to the dock these days i forget
In the context of the Lumberjack Song, when I hear bar I think of wine bars, which are more frou-frou establishments than pubs and don’t pull in working class folks. But just to confuse things, the counter over which beer is served in a pub is called a bar, just as in the US. In York they really try to confuse Yanks by calling “streets” “gates”, “gates” are called “bars”, and “bars” are called “pubs”.
Also, trendy urban type drinking places are called bars. But that might be just terminology from the US which has filtered over the Atlantic. Pubs are more yer traditional type places.
No-one yet says ‘let’s go down the bar’. The conversation is usually more like:
“Pub?”
“Indeed.”
“Ba.”
That’s as close as it gets…
FWIW, wasn’t the lumberjack supposed to be Canadian rather than British. In any case bar nearly rhymes with bra, as in “suspenders and a bra”…
I never wanted to do this in the first place!
I… I wanted to be…
A LUMBERJACK!
(piano vamp)
Leaping from tree to tree! As they float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia! With my best girl by my side!
The Larch! The Pine! The Giant Redwood tree! The Sequoia! The Little Whopping Rule Tree! We’d sing! Sing! Sing!
followed by the song.
The further complication is that those drinking places which form part of larger institutions, such as hotels, clubs or colleges, are usually ‘bars’ rather than ‘pubs’.
At the time when the ‘Lumberjack Song’ was written, there would still have been the assumption that a bar in an hotel or a club (although perhaps not a college) would be a bit more genteel than a pub.