Ah, the good old days...
A friend of mine sent this to me. I just had to share...
A HISTORY LESSON
(Author unknown....and probably for good reason) :D
Next time you are washing your hands and complain
because the water temperature isn't just how you
like it, think about how things used to be...
Here are some facts about the 1500s:
Most people got married in June because they
took their yearly bath in May and still smelled
pretty good by June. However, they were starting
to smell so 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 dogs, 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 really 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 the floor to help keep their footing.
As the winter wore on, they kept adding more
thresh until when you opened the door it would
all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was
placed in the entranceway - hence, a "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 the 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
and 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 "upper crust."
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The
combination would sometimes knock them 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 thought 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."
And that's the truth... (who said that History was
boring)?
Fate,
Thanks for digging up all of that information. I love learning about the history behind some of the phrases in our language. Do you have any more where that came from?
Kevin