Have you ever wondered about the origins of certain everyday expressions such as?
The 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 they still smelled pretty good by June.
However, since they were starting to smell . .. . brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour.
Hence the custom 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!"
People 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 "didn't have a pot to piss in" and were the lowest of the low.
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 th e 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: 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 stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while.
Hence the rhyme: Pea's porridge hot, pea's porridge cold, pea's 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 out of 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 whisky.
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, one out of 25 twenty five 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.
And that's the truth...
Now, whoever said History was boring!
Very interesting Tee Gee. Some good ol' pub ammo right there!!
That's all wonderful! All these phrases we think we understand, but don't.....it is the same with all the nautical phrases, I realised, when acting as unwilling crew in a boat. "Sailing close to the wind" means more to you if you are steering and the sails begin to rattle helplessly instead of pulling you along. There are HUNDREDS of these phrases.
By the way, my professor father, a hispanist, had paid leave, a sabbatical, during the 80s and stayed with a Spanish family while doing his research - he reported that a similar cauldron to the one you describe hung over their fire, and simmered away for ever. They would toss a few extra beans into it from time to time, and dish out ladles of it for supper. When he realised how old it was getting, he moved.
Unfortunately most of it is false. This has been doing the rounds on the internet for years and has been pretty well fully debunked. It's fun but essentially a bit of internet nonsense..
http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/1500.asp
Actually the bit about the "pease porridge" pot is probably true. A friend who grew up in rural Vendée on the French Atlantic coast said that they had an open fire and there were always some "mogettes" cooking - these are a type of large white bean eaten a lot in that area. the pot was never washed - every day or so, more beans, a piece of bacon, an onion etc was tossed in when the level got low, a good slosh of water, salt etc, stirred all the time and the beans cooked constantly on the fire like that. It was eaten by the farm workers, usually spread on bread as it had usually cooked down to a sort of thick porridge most times, when they came in cold and hungry from their hard labour in the fields. people in that area were quite poor, and they were happy to have something hot to eat, at any time of the day! As the pot was constantly being eaten from, it never had time to go off...
Odd but true. I have eaten mogettes cooked very slowly like that, with lots of herbs and chunky bacon, and it is indeed delicious (but the pot did start out clean !!!)
Exactly. Even if not all these explanations are true, some of them could be. Cynics are destructive and can be wrong. It is much more interesting to keep an open mind.
TG, spot on love it. :blob7:
Digmore. :wave:
Quote from: artichoke on March 03, 2014, 23:56:07
Exactly. Even if not all these explanations are true, some of them could be. Cynics are destructive and can be wrong. It is much more interesting to keep an open mind.
There is having an open mind and there is being plain wrong.
In this case most of the "facts" are wrong - can't see what the issue is - go check it out for yourself - that is what I did. The whole thing was started as an internet joke and people are still falling for it. I have an open mind but not so open that things just fall in.