Friday

Intersting ~ Ever wonder where some sayings come from?



I received this in an email and thought I would share it. (I have no idea who wrote it.)  I find this kind of thing very interesting.  Dream Latte and I are always using "old sayings" and then we follow with, "Whatever that means!"

 Here is some information about the 1500s:    


Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in  May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell . .. . Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when  getting married.

Baths consisted of a big  tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children.  Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty  you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying,  'Don't throw the baby out with the bath water!' 



Houses had thatched  roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath.  It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all  the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in  the roof. When it rained it became slippery and  sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof.  Hence the saying 'It's raining cats and  dogs'.

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence. 



The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, 'Dirt poor'. The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they  spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the  entrance-way. Hence: 'thresh hold'.


In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they  lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day.  Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for  quite a while. Hence the rhyme:
Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, 'bring home the bacon'. They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and 'chew the fat'.



Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes,  so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top,  or the 'upper crust'.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey.The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a 'wake'. 



Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes,  so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top,  or the 'upper crust'.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey.The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a 'wake'. 



England  is old and  small and the local folks started running out of places  to bury people.. So they would dig up coffins and would  take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave.  When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were  found to have scratch marks on the inside and they  realized they had been burying people alive. So they  would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it  through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it  to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the  graveyard all night (the 'graveyard shift') to listen  for the bell; thus, someone could be, 'saved by the  bell' or was considered a 'dead   ringer'...


Now, I will warn you!  This last one is a little gross but interesting anyway:


They used to use urine to tan  animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot &  then once a day it was taken & sold to the  tannery.........if you had to do this to survive you were  'Piss Poor' But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot.......... they 'didn't have a pot to piss in' and were the lowest of the low.


Have anymore facts like that?  I'd love to hear them!

photo courtesy of google images  

2 comments:

Luke Holzmann said...

Always fun to learn to the background of how things came to be. Thanks for sharing [smile].

~Luke

My Diabetic Sweet Life said...

Wow that was interesting - I never knew any of that except for the graveyard shift thing which nobody else ever believed me about. I should show them this LOL. Thanks for leaving your link on my de-lurk post, it's been lovely to come and have a nosey at your blog...you've done some nice things here.

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