Posted on 02/10/2009 12:42:17 PM PST by Grumpybutt
** 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 entrance way. Hence the saying a threshold.
(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 platters 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 a person 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 ! ! !
No, I think it’s an old Saxon or Celtic word, can’t recall which, which just happens to be the same as the “dead” which means “lifeless”. It’s an intensifier, making the adjective to which it is attached absolute, exact.
O.E. dead, from P.Gmc. *dauthaz, from PIE *dheu-. Meaning "insensible" is first attested c.1225. Of places, meaning "inactive, dull," it is recorded from 1581. Used from 16c. in adj. sense of "utter, absolute, quite." Dead heat is from 1796. Dead reckoning may be from nautical abbreviation ded. ("deduced") in log books, but it also fits dead (adj.) in the sense of "unrelieved, absolute.
However, most uses of "dead" as an intensifier have some whacky folk theory that is wrong, so I would not be surprised if the "deduced" theory is wrong, too. Dead reckoning could simply be "exact" reckoning, not "deduced", like "dead eye" and "dead right".
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bfl
These things are always garbage filled. Even the ones that deal with the 1950s!
As for thatched roofs. Good quality thatch is a great roof and so much cooler than the asphalt shingles of today.
Most of this is true!
I don’t know about the 16th century, but in the early America, red was a barn color because blood could be added to white pigment...
Taking a bath in early america was a big deal. Go out and pump enough water to fill a tub, but first warm it up in the fireplace or on an old wood burning stove, carry to tub, add until 1/2 full and then add cold water to make it just warm enough so as not to burn...On my grandma’s farm we were lucky and had a pump house attached to the kitchen. Circa early 1900’s to 1940’s. But you sure had to lug a lot of water to fill a tub.. . Dad was born in 1901, tub baths were few and far between, but that didn’t mean they didn’t wash. In nursing its called a PTA bath if short of staff...Stands for Pit, T!ts and a$$
You are apparently sadly misinformed about organ procurement practices in the 21st century. Since 2001, more organ donors have been living donors than cadaveric (dead). Most are related to the recipient, but more and more are directed donations from unrelated persons. Furthermore, with advances in organ preservation and harvesting, Donation after Cardiac Death (DCD) is the most common method of cadaveric organ harvest. Brain death is still used as a criteria, but much less often than in the 70's and 80's.
Read a little and broaden your mind. It's fun.
It also looks very cool! Modern "thatch" substitutes are safe and attractive. And awfully expensive!
“Brain death is still used as a criteria”
I read a good bit but thanks for the ad hominem anyway.
Did I say that the only organ donations are from brain dead donors?
No.
Did I deny that living people donate organs? No.
Do we indeed use the brain death definition as justification for harvesting organs? Your own words say that we do.
Which was my point, my sole point. We do not use cardiac death exclusively to define death. Back in 1500 they did use it exclusively because they didn’t have machines to register brain activity.
We do harvest organs from brain dead but cardiac alive people. That we also do organ transplants with from the other sorts of donors you listed was irrelevant to my point.
So I didn’t mention it.
But not mentioning something is not the same as denying something.
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