So That's Where That Term Comes From

Hmmmmmm. So that's where that term comes from!

My ancestors weren't just poor, they were ..........

In the Paleolithic period, around 40,000 years ago, people started making moccasin-like wraparound footwear out of softened animal skins, or rawhide. This seemingly simple advancement gave humankind a major leg up in long-distance travel and marked the beginning of leather-making. Over time, it was discovered that human urine was an excellent chemical to use for tanning the animal skins. To help offset family expenses, families kept a pot in their homes where family members could empty their bladders"(peed). When the pot was full it was taken and sold to the local tannery.

If you had to do this to survive you were thought to be "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.

A Watched Pot Never Boils

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 earlier times. 

Why brides carry a bouquet of flowers  

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.  I wonder if in modern times Brides throw their bouquet over their shoulder to a group of unmarried women is the same as saying, "I don't need to worry anymore about how I smell, I found my guy.  Maybe this can help you find yours."  Anyway just a thought. 

Poor Baby

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!"

Raining Cats and Dogs

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.

They were so poor, they were dirt poor.

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." Get it, it held the thresh in place; a thresh hold. :-)

Carrying the bride over the threshold

The tradition of carrying the bride over the threshold is not a new tradition; it dates back centuries and has a few different origins.

The first idea for carrying the bride over the threshold stems from the same ancient belief as the idea of an aisle runner and throwing flower petals on the aisle. This belief is that the newlywed couple is very susceptible to evil spirits. By carrying the bride over the threshold, the groom is putting a protective space between her and the floor; thus, protecting her.

Generations ago, it was considered lady like for the new bride to be, or at the very least appear to be, unwilling to “give herself” to her new husband. Whether she was or not was not the issue, it was all about appearances. At the threshold to the bedchamber, the husband would have to carry her over to encourage her to go in.

Another tradition dictates that the new wife must enter her home for the first time by the main door and to avoid bad luck, she must not trip or fall. To avoid this, the groom would carry her into the house.

During the ancient times when people were married by capture, the bride obviously would not go willingly into her husband’s home. So she was either dragged or carried in. Over time it evolved and became the tradition that is practiced today.

Even earlier times believed that family demons followed the bride to her new home. To keep them from entering the home, the groom would carry her across the threshold the first time she entered the home. After that demons could not come in and the bride was free to come and go as she pleased.

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."

Bacon a status symbol

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."

Killer Tomatoes

           

                                Pewter for the wealthy              Wood for the common folks

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 and Crust

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."

The Bell Tolls for Thee

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.