Did you ever wonder what everyday life
was like back in the good old days?
It must have been a struggle, especially for the poor and down trodden. Many of the sayings we use today were the result of those times.Here's some examples of their origin.
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 their body odor. Baths were nothing more than a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then came 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 made with 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 if they made beds with big posts and hung a sheet over the top, it addressed that problem. Hence those beautiful poster beds with canopies. I wonder if this is where we get the saying 'Good night and don't let the bed bugs bite'. In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes ... when you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. That's where the phrase 'Good night, sleep tight' came from.
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 get even more slippery. A piece of wood was placed at the entry way, hence a 'thresh hold'.
They cooked in the kithen in a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Everyday they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They usually ate mostly 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 all 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 that a man could really 'bring home the bacon'. They would cut off a little to share with guests and sit around to '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 like a bowl. The trenchers were never washed real clean and a lot of times worms got into the wood. After eating off wormy trenchers 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 toby's, or mugs, were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination, possibly a form of lead poisoning, 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, eat and drink, and wait to see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a 'wake'. Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. 'Wet your whistle' is the phrase inspired by this practice.
England is old and small, and they started running out of places to bury people. They would dig up coffins, 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, 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 they were on the 'graveyard shift', and would know that someone was 'saved by the bell', or he was a 'dead ringer'.
Place in the Sun | list of trivia | Yes, much more | inquiring minds |
Did you ever wonder what a web page would look like if it was written in a dialect of some kind. Have you ever heard of "The Dialectizer"? It's a very interesting site which will convert English to different dialects. You can choose Redneck, Moron, Pig Latin, Elmer Fudd, and others. Since most of this page's content is about England I thought a Cockney accent would be humorous.
Just click here to see the abbreviated conversion.
