Posted on 01/30/2019 4:21:04 AM PST by sodpoodle
“They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot.
Once a day it was taken and sold to the tannery.
If you had to do this to survive, you were ‘piss poor.’
But worse than that were the really poor folks who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot.
They ‘didn’t have a pot to piss in’ and were considered the lowest of the low.”
“Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell, 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 with thick straw-piled high and 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 term, ‘dirt poor.’ The wealthy had slate floors that would get 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 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, ‘a thresh hold.’”
“In the 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.’”
“In old, small villages, 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. ’
**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.***
I’ve found some old books with photos of such contraptions in them. One man named Batson designed one that looked like a belfry. Soon it was referred to as Batson’s Belfry. People thought he was nuts and the moniker “Bats in the Belfry” became a word for slightly crazy people.
the expression “letting the cat out of the bag”
Same for “Never buy a pig in a poke.”
I read in The Gun Digest that the urine of wine-drinking monks was highly prized by powder makers.
“the whole nine yards”
I’ve heard it was from world war 1 in which an aviator was given 9 yards of bullets for his machine guns. If he got into a dog fight, he often returned after using up “the whole nine yards”.
**Didn’t know they used urine for Corning***
I have the book THE AGE OF FIREARMS by Robert Held. In it, he mentions the use of urine for corning black powder. It was said the urine of “a wine drinking Bishop” was best and often given out as an Ecclesiastical favor.
I thought it was the amount of concrete in a single truck.
Fascinating, but ...
The expression piss-poor is recent and has nothing to do with tanning. The current state of research suggests that it may have been invented during the Second World War, because the first examples in print date from 1946.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-pis1.htm
Most of them are fiction.
If not true, then these are marvelous flight of imagination.
Enjoyed reading it.
Urine is still used to tan hides. Survivalists do it... Inuit do it... But I am highly skeptical of some of these “origins.”
Urine was used for two things that I know of. 1: to make ammonia. 2: Black powder.
You’re right. The aircraft explanation has been debunked.
All about self-esteem and Leftist drivel.
Creating snowflakes and buttercups by the tens of thousands who are triggered at the slightest thing and need safe spaces to protect them from the real world.
Am I wrong about this?
History is a white thing.
No, the phrase dates back at least to 1855, before belt-fed machine guns.
thanks for posting this
Fiction: Saved by the bell was a boxing term
Mark
Same length for the human intestinal tract.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.