You are in for a big surprise when you learn the sources of idioms like, ‘dirt
poor’, ‘it cost me an arm and a leg’, ‘bring
home the bacon’, ‘chew the fat’ and ‘kick
the bucket’ etc. If you know something that is not here, add it below. NPR has a program called , ‘a way with words’
it is fascinating to hear the origins of the worlds, and it is worth listening.
Source: unknown but developed.
An expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usualmeanings of its constituent elements, as kick the bucket or hang one'shead, or from the general grammatical rules of a language, as the tableround for the round table, and that is not a constituent of a larger
expression of like characteristics.
There is an old Hotel/Pub in Marble
Arch, London, which used to have a gallows adjacent to it. Prisoners were taken
to the gallows (after a fair trial of course) to be hanged. The horse-drawn
dray, carting the prisoner, was accompanied by an armed guard, who would
stop the dray outside the pub and ask the prisoner if he would like ''ONE
LAST DRINK''. If he said YES, it was referred to as ONE FOR THE
ROAD. If he declined, that prisoner was ON THE WAGON.
So there you go ... More bleeding
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 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. 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, pea’s porridge in the pot, and 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
talking 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 and 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, thread 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 ! ! !
Now, whoever said history was boring ! ! !
An arm and a leg – when you say, it cost me an arm and a leg – it has
to do with pre-photography era, where portraits were painted – usually of face
and busts, as it was expensive to do the
full picture, and they artists charged to add and arm and a leg, thus the
phrase, “it costs me an arm and a leg”.
Add yours in the comment section below.
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