Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2010

According to what I've read, it's a narrow house or apartment with all
the rooms leading out of each other. That sounds confusing. You have to
go through the living room to get to the bedroom, the living room and
bedroom to get to the kitchen, etc., and theoretically if all the doors
were open, you could fire a shotgun from the front door through the
house to the back door without actually hitting the house. I think it's
associated with poor housing; poor people here tended to build on bits
of their house more or less at random as needed and could be afforded,
but although you might have to go through one room to reach another, you
didn't get the shotgun style of house.

http://www.shelterpop.com/2009/11/12/shotgun-house/

Houses where a shotgun can be fired through the front door and the
pellets will go out the back door without striking anything in
between.  The physical description was provided by Cheryl, but this is
the reason for the term.

They're disappearing, but you can still see them in the south.  They
are invariably built up on stacks of blocks at intervals with a foot
or two of space between the floor and the ground.  This allows for air
circulation to keep the house cool in hot weather and to avoid the
cost of pouring a foundation.  It also provides a shady place for the
family dogs to rest.