PSX5Central
Non Gaming Discussions => Off-Topic => Topic started by: luckee on May 30, 2004, 09:24:54 PM
-
LIFE IN THE 1500\'S
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 the1500s:
These are interesting...
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so 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 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 adding more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying 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 "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."
And that\'s the truth... Now, whoever said that History was boring !
-
History rocks. Thats pretty cool, I honestly didn\'t know any of that before.
-
And because you are reading them on the internet they are of course all true.
-
exactly.
-
hmmm, there are some intresting ones, but i would hardly say they are all true....
-
Meh... some of the things do make sense.
-
but that doesnt mean they are true, is intresting though, would be cool to see how many are true, what site u get this from?
-
It\'s easy to take a saying and then think of something clever as to where the saying came from.
Although no one has ever told me where the term "Horny" came to mean wanting sex.
-
I know the grave thing is true from other history classes.
-
tomatoes were considered poisonous.
not to mention people used to put tomato leaves in thier salads/food back then before they had any clue they contain arsenic
-
Originally posted by videoholic
Although no one has ever told me where the term "Horny" came to mean wanting sex.
In the mid-late 1600\'s the Puritans believed that if a person was sexually aroused, without being married and/or while away from their spouse, they were being attacked by the devil. Eventually this came to be known as being horned by the devil(alluding to the devil\'s horns). After many years this phrase evolved to just "horned" and then eventually to "horny".
-
WHere did you find that? I remember looking a while for that.
-
I just made it up.....er...I mean, I read it in an encyclopedia.
:D
-
The Straight Dope on "Horny" (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_286a.html)
Word etymology of some sexual slang (http://www.takeourword.com/pt.html)
-
This is was spread when email was still in its infancy. And most of that is all contrived. Snope it and you\'ll see.
-
I knew about most of the medieval facts but not all of them. They really are interesting.
-
Originally posted by Titan
I knew about most of the medieval facts but not all of them. They really are interesting.
Please don\'t go quoting that mis-information. Most of it is bunk.
-
I thought I rememberd seeing this before long ago. I must have gotten it in an mail too.
We should have a quest then to debunk or affirm all of these.
I\'m tired now though. Have to go to bed.
Oh, and :gman:
-
who really gives a shit? If some are real, intresting. If some or all are fake, still a fun read.
-
Originally posted by luckee
who really gives a shit? If some are real, intresting. If some or all are fake, still a fun read.
It\'s all contrived. It may seem real as I did the first time I read it....in 1995.
http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/1500.htm
-
One thing I always wanted to know is how snopes always figures out how so many of this myth/truths are real or fake.
-
I\'ve been a victim of snopes a few times. The Life in the 1500\'s was one of them. The other was how Gerbers Baby Food has pics of a baby on its label. I read an email about how in Africa, canned foods would have the animal on the label to let the illiterate Africans know what food is in the can.
Of course, the email goes on to elaborate about how Africans were shocked to see Gerber\'s baby food with babies as the ingredients so they had to come up with a different label. Fake. Africans are literate and the email was probably some attempt to stereotype Africans as illiterate and lacking common sense. Gerbers has no problem selling their products in Africa whatsoever.
-
Ah HA! Here it is! Snoped it!
http://www.snopes.com/business/market/babyfood.asp