My apologies for the awful formatting of my last email. I thought I'd
removed all those damned carriage returns left in when I first received
it. Here it is again in the proper format.
Gents,
Here's something I received at work earlier today. Being a lover of the
English language and especially its colloquialisms, I found this very
enjoyable and hope some of you may also. I'd be interested in hearing
---From our U. K. brethren as to their opinions of the accuracy of these
items.
Cheers,
Steve G.
Life in the 1500s: (or "The Good Old Days")
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in
May and were still smelling relatively good by June. However, they were
starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide their
body odor.
Baths equaled a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had
the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the sons and other 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
pets...dogs, cats and other small animals, mice, rats, 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. So, they found if they made beds
with big posts and hung a sheet over the top, it addressed that
problem. Hence those beautiful 4 poster beds with canopies.
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt,
hence the saying "dirt poor". The wealthy had slate floors which would
get slippery in the winter when wet. So they spread thresh on the floor
to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on they kept adding
more thresh until when the door was opened, it would all start slipping
outside. A piece of wood was placed at the entry way, hence a "thresh
hold".
The cooking was done in the kitchen in a big kettle hanging over the
fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They
mostly ate vegetables and didn't 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 in there for a month. Hence the rhyme: "peas porridge hot, peas
porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."
Sometimes they could obtain pork and would feel really special when this
happened. When company came over, they would bring out some bacon and
hang it to show it off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could
really "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. This happened
most often with tomatoes, so they stopped eating tomatoes... for 400
years.
Most people didn't have pewter plates, but had trenchers - a piece of
wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Trenchers were never
washed, and a lot of times worms got into the wood. After eating off
wormy trenchers, they would sometimes get "trench mouth."
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 whiskey. The combination would
sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. Sometimes they would be
taken for dead and would be prepared 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 they started running out of places to bury
people. So, they would dig up coffins, remove the bones, and re-use the
grave. In reopening these coffins, many were found to have scratch
marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people
alive. So they began the practice of tying string to the wrist of the
body, leading it through the coffin and up through the ground,
attaching it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard
all night to listen for the bell. Hence on the "graveyard shift" they
would know that someone was "saved by the bell" or he was a "dead
ringer".
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