Any truth in these origins?

[Graham]

Copied from an email I received. Wonder whether the origins are true?

 

Where did "Piss Poor" come from? Interesting history. They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot and then 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 folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot...they "didn't have a pot to piss in" and were the lowest of the low. The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperatureisn'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. 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-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: 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".

[easy-lift guy]

Thanks Graham, For the 5 min's or so it took me to read your history lesson it brought back fond memories of stories my adult family members told me as a child. It is a pity that today's generation can not or will not learn from the past. Interesting and true as far as I can tell and remember history.

easy-lift guy.

[agrimog]

only one point, thresh hold comes from the batten placed in front of the barn door where the hand threshing took place , to prevent the grain being blown out with the chaff whilst preparing the grain harvest, otherwise very informative, cheers

[Stephen Blair]

That was great, even if it's not true, I like it lol

[Robert_S]

Brilliant post, once a year bath

[Fungus]

1. Where did "Piss Poor" come from? Interesting history. They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot and then once a day it was taken and sold to the tannery...if you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor".

2. 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.

3. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot.

4. 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.

 

Nice histories of folklore, Graham, to which I add the following true tales.

1. "Getting pissed" comes from people drinking the urine of others, who had eaten dried Fly Agarics for shamanistic ceremonial or war preparing purposes, to experience (some of) the hallucinatory effects of the psychoactive constituents of the red fleece (Golden Fleece, Holy Grail, Avalon) of the cap, which the after consumption of the mushrooms secreted urin contained. In Hungary, they use the expression "he or she must have been eating from the "Bolund gomba" (= Fly Agaric) for people acting crazy or being "under the influence".

2. In The Netherlands, before Sunday morning, farmers decorated the dirt floor of the stable, which was attached to the main house, with figures made of different colours of sand. The well to do farmers used black and white pebbles, they stored during the week.

3. When you're too late for dinner, in my country they say, that you "will find the dog in the pot".

4. In the middle ages, Dutch farmers covered festering wounds with the green mould (of a Penicillium species) growing on old bread, which mostly cured the (bacterial) infection within some days. It was not until Fleming discovered antibiotics, that the effect of the mould was explained.

They also used ear wax to seal off and "sterilize" open wounds with.

[Nick D]

Don't forget cut and run - if a ship missed high tide they would cut the anchor rather than sit in port

Worth your salt - when salt was an expensive commodity it only went so far down the table, hence if you were valuable to the people you were worth your salt

S.H.I.T. is actually an acronym for ship high in transit, put on the packages of bird poo so they did not get put in the hold ( when wet an explosive gas is released and sailors went down with open flame causing an explosion)

[Big J]

Brilliant post, once a year bath

 

I'm not seeing the joke - I thought that was standard practice in Scotland?

[Robert_S]

I'm not seeing the joke - I thought that was standard practice in Scotland?

 

Only down where you stay,

[skyhuck]

The coffin thing is not true, decomposition can cause the timber to on the coffin lid to peel, leaving what looks like scratch marks, so bells were fitted by some.

 

But I'm pretty sure "saved by the bell" comes from boxing.