Some facts from the 1500s!

[Bayleaf]

Fascinating explanations behind so many of our sayings ....!


They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & sold to the tannery. If you had to do this to survive you were “piss poor.”
But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot; they “didn’t have a pot to piss in” & were the lowest of the low.
The next time you are washing your hands & 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 they still smelled pretty good by June. Since they were starting to smell, however, 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, resulting in the idiom, “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, therefore, 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, leading folks to coin the phrase “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, subsequently creating 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 stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while, and thus 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, creating 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?

[Wilbro]

Yearly baths, if ever, still apply sometimes today. There have been times we've been driven out of a supermarket aisle by someone's stench!

[Lori]

[DominicBest]

I’ve always liked that the word sabotage comes from the word sabot meaning a wooden clog. After the industrial revolution unhappy workers would often throw a clog into the machinery bringing everything to a standstill.
I also like the French connection to the distress calls May Day, Pan Pan and Security which are still used by ships and planes. When it was decided that there should be an international standard language for shipping and aviation English was chosen. The French weren’t happy so in compensation the short phrases to warn others of dangers were French. Mayday the most serious, a warning of a problem that could end in loss of life was m’aide as in help me. The next level where a vessel or plane had a problem that wasn’t considered life threatening was en panne, broken down. The third which warns others of a potential danger was securite. Over time these have been anglicised to the words used today. If the Baltimore ship really sent a Mayday before colliding with the bridge they must have been concerned about people on the bridge or were simply keen to highlight the seriousness of their position. The normal distress call for a ship with engine or electrical problems would be Pan Pan.

[DominicBest]

Yearly baths, if ever, still apply sometimes today. There have been times we've been driven out of a supermarket aisle by someone's stench!

Apparently there is a correlation between the type of ear wax your body produces (there are three distinct types) and armpit odours. Unfortunately the most common type in the west is the one linked to the strongest smells.

[L Austin France]

Fascinating x 3

[Hotrodder]

Bayleaf's mention of the dirt floors reminded me. When I arrived in 2001 I was made aware of people in Brittany still living in houses with dirt floors. My wood supplier and his aged mum lived in such a house. And one day we saw her repairing her wooden clogs. The single room house I bought that year had been occupied by eleven people

[Blaze]

Yearly baths, if ever, still apply sometimes today. There have been times we've been driven out of a supermarket aisle by someone's stench!

Apparently there is a correlation between the type of ear wax your body produces (there are three distinct types) and armpit odours. Unfortunately the most common type in the west is the one linked to the strongest smells.

When I worked in London and used the tube, I noticed that black people often had a particular smell, not necessarily BO. Apparently orientals find the same thing with white Europeans.

I wonder if the ear wax thing has any connection with people who have smelly feet ?

[Pathca]

Apparently the Thai people have the nicest natural odour because of their diet

[exile]

Apparently we Europeans have a distinctive smell due to our consumption of dairy products.