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Fun with history.
Clever read.
Fun with history
The next time you wash your hands and complain that the water temperature
isn't just the way you like it, think about the way things used to be...real
honest to goodness 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.
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
supports 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 tall 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, like
slate tiles that would get very 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 out. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway
to catch the thresh -- 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. This would make 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 a 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, which was called
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 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. Then someone would sit in the graveyard, all
night long (on the "graveyard shift") and listen for the bell. Thus, the
expression, he or she was "saved by the bell" or considered a "dead ringer."
Clever read.
Fun with history
The next time you wash your hands and complain that the water temperature
isn't just the way you like it, think about the way things used to be...real
honest to goodness 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.
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
supports 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 tall 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, like
slate tiles that would get very 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 out. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway
to catch the thresh -- 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. This would make 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 a 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, which was called
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 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. Then someone would sit in the graveyard, all
night long (on the "graveyard shift") and listen for the bell. Thus, the
expression, he or she was "saved by the bell" or considered a "dead ringer."
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