okay, most of you know I have an facination with sayings and customs. I love to get the scoop on where they came from. My dad just sent me these, oh i'm so excited!
In the 1500...
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. 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 floors were 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 entranceway. Hence the saying ... "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. 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 talk. Hence the saying ... "Chew the fat".
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach into the food causing death due to lead poisoning. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous. Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knockout the drinkers 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 to listen for the bell; hence, the phrase ... "Graveyard shift". Thus, someone could be either "saved by the bell", or was considered "a dead ringer".
And that's the truth ... now, whoever said History was boring!
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