How poor were you?

[kentuck]

Where did Piss Poor come from?

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 and 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. 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 whiskey. 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.

And that's the truth....Now, whoever said History was boring!!!


===========

Recd in an email today :-)

on edit - cannot verify all the facts. It's only an email folks. No need to get your bowels in an uproar.


=

[rurallib]

1. Most fun post in a long time!

[janx]

2. Great post about history and language!

Recommended!

[valerief]

3. Hey, that was really fun to read. Thanks a lot!!!!

:-)

[REP]

4. Cute, but wrong

The etymology of "threshold" is incorrect; it's actual root is Scandavian and has nothing to do with holding thresh.

Etc. I could go on, but Super Pedant has to go out.

[One Voice]

5. Thanks for the smile!

That was interesting :D

[Lochloosa]

6. K/R

[REP]

7. One more - wakes for the dead predate lead drinkware

The etymology is from 'vigil' not 'to awake.' Geesh these are awful history and etymology!

[Fumesucker]

8. Interesting post, thanks for sharing..

However not all pewter has lead in it, fine pewter is tin and about 1% copper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pewter

The cheaper pewters that the poor were more likely to have contained as much as 15% lead though.

[Wickerman]

9. that was really fun

and someone has a great imagination.

Not to kill the joy (dates back to 1999 will Bill Killjoy started using books to refute urban legends on the intertubes) so don't try any of these topics in Snopes.

[Recovered Repug]

10. I was so poor

I couldn't pay attention. However according to snopes, that's all BS

http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/1500.asp

[Warpy]

11. The canopy beds weren't just to stop vermin, especially

since the people most prone to having a rain of vermin upon them couldn't afford that much cloth. The canopy bed was combined with curtains on all four sides because fireplaces were a rather late invention, and the wealthy who wanted a little privacy to do whatever they did in bed would draw the curtains shut and the canopy and curtains would hold all the body heat in the space instead of freezing them as a curtained but uncovered bed would have done in a dank stone castle. The poor bedded down together and kept each other warm.

Bathing in the cold, wet climate of Europe was not something people did, unless it was for ceremonial reasons. Immersing oneself in water was seen as a stupid and dangerous thing to do. The hierarchy of bathing was developed in the 1700s, certainly not before. Francis I of France was famously quoted as boasting that when he removed his shirt, his armpits smoked. Funk was considered sexy back then. P.U.

Even the Romans with their heated bath houses had only been able to effect a temporary change on the bathing front. Once the bath houses fell into disrepair, bathing pretty much ended.

[Odin2005]

22. The bathing thing is not true, Medieval Europeans bathed quite regularily.

Not nearly as often as today, but still more than the "twice a year" nonsense I see thrown around. And most cities had public baths. It was the reformation that ended that as bathing was decried as a sinful decadence.

[unkachuck]

12. K&R....confess, you made all that up, right?....n/t

[Papagoose]

13. Well, I understand it's just good for a smile

and I appreciate it.

[Canuckistanian]

14. There are so many misconceptions and "old wive's tales" in this

I don't know where to begin.

For example, Tomatoes didn't reach England until the early 1600's. They were South American in origin. Pewter ALSO became affordable in the 1600's. So there wasn't a "400 year period" where tomatoes were considered "poisonous"

[Skink]

15. The town I grew up in was built around a Tannery.

My parents had good jobs though.

The piss trickle down started here with me, joining the workforce a year or two after Reagan.

[geckosfeet]

16. Another etymology for dead ringer - also a good halloween joke:

The pastor of the local church was getting on in years and was having difficulty climbing the steps of the bell tower to ring the church bell. He decided to hire a someone to do the job.

The only applicant for the job was a poor man who had no arms but, being one of three identical triplets needed to help support his brothers. When the priest asked how he could possibly ring the bell in his condition the man he said that he would ring that bell if he had to hit it with his head. So, since he had no other applicants and the man needed the job the priest told him come for a try out on Sunday.

On Sunday morning the bell rang out loud and clear and the priest was quite amazed. He hobbled up the stairs of the bell tower but was shocked to in fact see the man hitting the bell with his head in order to ring it. He ran over to stop the man from bloodying himself any further but so surprised him that he tripped and fell off the bell tower to death in the street below.

The stunned priest made his way down the stairs and pushed his way to the front of the crowd that gathered. A policeman seeing how distraught the priest was asked if he knew the man. The priest said "No, but his face sure rings a bell."

At the funeral one of the mans brothers offered to come and ring the bell for the priest. The guilt ridden priest hired him on the spot and told him come and ring the bell on Sunday. Sure enough, Sunday morning the bell rang out loud and clear. The priest made his way up the stairs to express his gratitude only to surprise the man who was busy ringing the bell - and cause him to lose his footing and fall to his death! The shocked priest made his way to front of the crowd that had gathered and stood there sobbing 'no, not again not again". When a policeman asked him if he knew the man the priest sobbed, "No, but he is a dead ringer for the other one."

Well, the story continues with the last triplet brother offering to ring the bell at the funeral, he falls as well, and dammit I forget how it all ends but heck, it makes a good halloween story. If anyone has heard this and remembers the ending - please please please - I am dying to find out.

[malaise]

17. Funny I was telling students about the baths

earlier this week.

[unblock]

18. i can't help it if my bowels get in an uproar. and where did THAT expression come from?

in case anyone missed it above, snopes say FALSE http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/1500.asp

[applegrove]

19. I've seen it before but it is fun.

[eleny]

20. thanks!

[TheWraith]

21. In fact, almost all of those are urban legends. nt

[kwassa]

23. I was so poor I couldn't even pay attention.