I was sent this, it's supposed to explain a bunch of old expressions. I
don't know whether to laugh of call it gross!!
> Life in the Sixteenth Century - (the 1500's) - so much for being
> romantic.
> Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in
> May and were still smelling pretty good by June. However, they were
> starting to
> smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the bad odor.
> Baths equaled 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 pets... dogs,
> cats and other small animals, mice, rats, 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. So, they found that if they made beds with
> big posts and hung a sheet over the top, it addressed that problem.
> Hence those beautiful big 4 poster beds with canopies.
> The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt,
> hence the saying "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors, which would
> get slippery in
> the winter when wet. So they spread thresh 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 at the entryway, hence a "threshold".
> They cooked in the kitchen in a big kettle that always hung over the
> fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They
> mostly ate vegetables and didn't 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
> in there for a month. Hence the rhyme: "peas porridge hot, peas porridge
> cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."
> Sometimes they could obtain pork and would feel really special when that
> happened. When Company came over; they would bring out some bacon and
> hang it to show it off. It was a sign of wealth and that a man "could
> really 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 a high acid
> content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food. This happened
> most often with
> tomatoes, so they stopped eating tomatoes . . . for 400 years!
> Most people didn't have pewter plates, but had trenchers - a piece of
> wood with the middle scooped out likes a bowl. Trenchers were never
> washed and a lot of times worms got into the wood. After eating off
> wormy trencher, they would get "trench mouth."
> 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 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 they started running out of places to bury
> people. So, they would dig up coffins and would take their bones to a
> house and re-use the grave. In reopening these coffins, one 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 their wrist and 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 to listen for
> the bell. Hence on the "graveyard shift" they would know that someone
> was "saved by the bell" or he was a "dead ringer."
> Dr. Beatrice Stiglitz
> Professor of French and Italian
> College of Charleston
> Charleston, SC
> From Canfields
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