Why do we go out west and back east?

The only thing I can think of is that it possibly originated because people originally colonized in the East and then made their way out West. Or something.

Yes, what DrasticDreamer said.

I still hear people use the terms but they are older than 50, usually.

@ DrasticDreamer—I think that is spot on, @ aprilsimnel – I hear all age groups using the lingo…being someone whose lived out west…and am now back east….

Most Americans started in the East and if they are in the west, they are going back to the place their ancestors launched from.

John B.L. Soule, a very old guy, said,“Go west, young man.” This was borrowed by Horace Greeley in the middle of the nineteenth century.

So it’s all tradition. I have never lived back anywhere.

We say going out west and back east, I assumed that is because we were going west and then east…

I still do.

“Out west” harks back to pioneer days, I believe, when the West was the frontier and it was psychologically very far out from where the core of civilization was, just as people went out to the colonies and out to the mission fields. Even now, the national direction of movement still tends to be westward.

“Back east” has meaning mostly for people who have come from the East Coast and has the same general sense as “back home” does for anyone who has come from somewhere other than where they now live. But I’ve heard it used by people who have lived on the West Coast all their lives and still acknowledge that our collective origins as a nation incline us to look eastward.

By now both expressions have acquired a generally recognized meaning as referring to specific parts of the country. If you just say “east,” it could mean anywhere east of some starting point (Denver, for example, is east of where I am), but “back east” points to the Atlantic states, and the northern ones, at that, because the southern ones are the South.

Then, of course, there’s ”down East,” which is Maine.

So, if I moved to New York would it be appropriate for me to say “back west” to refer to my home?

Sure! In fact, if I moved back east, I probably would consider California “back west.” But I wouldn’t expect to hear a lot of other people saying it.

because east was discovered first and west was unknown.

Discovered by who? The Spanish were in the west, not to mention the natives.

Because in the pioneer days people migrated from the eastern states (civilization) to the west (out in the middle of nowhere). When people went back to visit relatives, they would say they were going back east. People going west would say “out west” because it was like the outback. Where you came from now or where you’re going doesn’t matter. Those terms were coined a long time ago and just stuck.

Having been an east-coaster all my life, I just assumed that west-coasters said it the opposite way. (Born in California, going out east to visit, heading back west to return home.) Interesting!

tinyfairy, the words are english and refer to the european perspective of US migration. Obviously there were natives there already, but they never use the expressions (btw the Spanish also started off from the east like everyone else)

I just wanted to answer the second question: no, it does not apply anywhere else, because most other countries had already been discovered thousands of years earlier, so it made no sense. And I’ve never heard an Australian say “going back to Europe” or “out to Tasmania” though of course the Bush is “out”, but that’s because it is literally outdoors.

The Bush is certainly “out.” Did you hear his last interview with the press this morning?Someone taught him the word “rhetoric,” and he used it four times.

Was that the one I just heard a little piece of yesterday (Jan. 12), while driving, in which he answered a question about the greatest mistakes of his administration? and one of his answers was that he had made some mistakes in his rhetoric? When he got to the part about “Not finding weapons of mass destruction! That was a significant disappointment! Things didn’t go according to plan!” I started to laugh aloud and laughed so hard that I became a road hazard.

Rhetoric still needs a little work, buddy.

Sorry, folks. Minor digression. What I really wanted to ask was what part of the landscape isn’t outdoors.

Cause when a man stands parrell to the earths
equater & the ground he stands,
His back is facing East.
If he steps forward he’s stepping out toward the west.

Skaggfacemutt said what I was going to :)