(This has circulated on-line, and recently has become accompanied by a rebuttal of sorts, below.) ************************************************ ************************************************ LIFE IN THE 1500'S 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 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. 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 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 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 entranceway. Hence the saying a thresh hold. (Getting quite an education, aren't you?) 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, Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas 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 onto 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, 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 (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 ! ******************************************************** ******************************************************** But then this following counter-point .... ******************************************** Dead ringer actually originates in the 19th century ... be a dead ringer for "resemble closely," 1891, from ringer, a fast horse entered fraudulently in a race in place of a slow one (the verb to ring in this sense is attested from 1812), possibly from British ring in "substitute, exchange," via ring the changes, "substitute counterfeit money for good," a pun on ring the changes in the sense of play the regular series of variations in a peal of bells (1614). Threshold: O.E. rescold, rscwold, erxold "doorsill, point of entering," first element related to O.E. rescan, with its original sense of "tread, trample." Second element of unknown origin and much transformed in all the Gmc. languages; in Eng. it probably has been altered to conform to hold, but the oft-repeated story that the threshold was a barrier placed at the doorway to hold the chaff flooring in the room is mere folk etymology. Cats and dogs never slept or stayed on thached roofs. Bugs, etc. certainly did. It's raining cats and dogs has an interesting background, but the one presented here is wrong. In reality, it is a 17th century phrase, not the 16th, and a common theory on its origin is the fact that storms would cause the primitive drainage systems of the 18th century to collapse and flood the gutters with debris including dead animals. The phrase "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" is Germanic, not English. It does go back to the 1500s, but it was first mentioned in a satirical book by Thomas Murner called Narrenbeschworung. It's meaning is metaphorical, the same as today, and actual babies and bathwater are not mentioned. The English word "wake" originated from the ancient Indo-European root "wog" or "weg," meaning "to be active." This evolved into several meanings, including "growth" ("vegetable"), "to become or stay alert," and "watching or guarding." The third also evolved into the word "watch," and it is in this sense that people have a "wake" for someone who recently died". While the modern usage of the verb "wake" is "become or stay alert" meaning, a "wake" for the dead "harks back to the antiquated "watch or guard" sense". This is contrary to the urban legend that people at a wake are waiting in case the deceased should "wake up." The porridge rhyme etmyology is nothing but legend. The word porridge did not originate until the 17th century, and cottages in the 16th century never had separate rooms for cooking, indeed they rarely had more than one room at all. Additionally, poor town dwellers usually did not own a kettle and therefore usually ate from street vendors. And it was exceedingly rare for any food to be left in a kettle, certainly not for 9 days, or even 2 or 3 days, especially for those living in dire poverty and close to starvation. Tomatoes were brought to Britain in the 1590s and were regularly eaten by the 1700s. They were considered poisonous, but not because lead leeched into them, instead because they resembled known poisonous plants and because the stalk contains poisonous glyco The idea that those in medieval times bathed only once or twice a year, even noblemen, is one idea that seems to not want to die. The concept of "full immersion" bathing was largely non existent by the 1500s. People, of course, still regularly bathed, just not in the sense that we understand (that is, using a large person-sized vat of water). And they would regularly use the resources at hand to do so (soap, a river, etc.) The real reason that flowers are carried at weddings is because they represented fertility and sexuality. Dirt poor is an American expression, not a British one. As such it originated long after the 1500s, nor does it have anything to do with floors, which, at any rate, were never bare dirt. The term "chewing the fat" didn't exist before the American Civil War. It most likely originated from sailors who would grind the toughest parts of their salted/cured meat rations. However, people don't chew fat for sustenence, since you won't get any by doing that. Although people were occasionally buried alive, it wasn't even a remotely 1/25 chance of discovering scratch marks, or a 1/10,000 chance for that matter. Burial signalling devices such as whistles, bells, didn't exist in the 1500s, they were fashionable for some time in the 19th. Canopy beds have origins which predate the 1500s and at any rate were never found in the homes of the poor peasants. Only the well-to-do had canopy beds. Grave-reusal was sometimes practiced in Europe, before, during and after the 1500s. It had nothing to do with the physical size of a country but rather with the size of an established cemetary.The term graveyard shift comes from around 1900. "Graveyard watch" was first used in 1895, as a midnight shipboard watch. Graveyard shift appeared in a 1907 Collier's Magazine. Saved by the bell is a boxing term. It comes from fighters who were nearly KO who would try to delay their knockout until the bell signalled the next round. 1930s at the earliest. Obviously boxing with a bell ringing at the end of the round didn't exist in the 1500s. The only correct etymology in the silly hodgepodge that is this internet urban legend is "upper crust". Everything else is flat out wrong. It started out as a joke in April 1999 on the internet and grew from there ... ***************************************** So there! Fair and balanced!