Interesting 'origins'.....but, true??

[terrypin]

dont eat yellow snow.

That is attributed to one of Jock's relatives.
JockScott of the Antarctic

 

[jockscott]

dont eat yellow snow.

That is attributed to one of Jock's relatives.
JockScott of the Antarctic

Aye , I think he was my great, great grandfaither

 

[terrypin]

dont eat yellow snow.

That is attributed to one of Jock's relatives.
JockScott of the Antarctic

Aye , I think he was my great, great grandfaither

dont eat yellow snow.

That is attributed to one of Jock's relatives.
JockScott of the Antarctic

Aye , I think he was my great, great grandfaither

C'mon, I heard he was your grandfather.

 

[Nige F]

Looking through a few Facebook posts, I came across this. They all sound feasible, but are they actually true?

In the past people went round the streets collecting dog excrement, which was used for tanning leather. No idea if it gave rise to a saying.

Those people were called "Pure Finders" and the phrase became Finders, keepers. And they were welcome to it

 

[wobs]

The whole 9yds
To try one’s best
History: World War II Fighter pilots received a 9-yard chain of ammunition. Therefore, when a pilot used all of his ammunition on one target, he gave it “the whole 9 yards.”

I'm afraid not:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/nineyards.htm
-This site is by the chap who wrote Port Out Starboard Home. The site is an excellent source for this sort of thing. Many of these stories are simply not true, but they are nice stories all the same.

 

[tony1851]

Some years ago, on a visit to a Arabia, we stopped at a butchers to pick up a lamb for a barbecue at my hosts country house. The butcher cut out the liver and it turned out that that was our starter. You cut a piece off the raw liver, dip it in a saucer of salt, and then swallowed it in a oner. The lamb took four hours to cook in the pit barbecue and was served on a 4' dish on a bed of rice. The host and I were given a whole leg each and the five others there, a normal serving. Needless to say, he and I could only eat a tiny fraction of our lambs legs and the rest, together with the remainder of the lamb was passed on to people who were picnicking on adjoining land. I won't say what I got for pudding but I never watch "Get Me Out Of Here" nowadays because it always reminded me of that unpleasant dessert in the desert!

That's what you get for booking into a Carp hotel..

..........in the third world!

 

[Gasman28]

Looking through a few Facebook posts, I came across this. They all sound feasible, but are they actually true?

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 "P¡ss 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 píss 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 odour. 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.

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.

Does anyone have any other interesting 'origin' stories?

Some of those are false:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/55688/6-widely-repeated-phrase-origins-debunked

In the past people went round the streets collecting dog excrement, which was used for tanning leather. No idea if it gave rise to a saying.

Some poo facts:

http://londonist.com/2014/09/a-brief-history-of-london-poo

That may well be true and they sound it, but will we ever know the true origins?

 

[KenGMac]

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 "P¡ss 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 píss 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.


Read more: //www.diynot.com/diy/threads/interesting-origins-but-true.449645/#ixzz3wDvwsz5C

In Scotland, when sheep's wool was being made into a colour for weaving, Urine was used to Dye the Wool this work was undertaken by ladies who whilst employed on this work would sing, the process was called Walking the wool. The process of Walking occurred over a long number of years up here.

Ken.

 

[wobs]

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 "P¡ss 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 píss 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.


Read more: //www.diynot.com/diy/threads/interesting-origins-but-true.449645/#ixzz3wDvwsz5C

In Scotland, when sheep's wool was being made into a colour for weaving, Urine was used to Dye the Wool this work was undertaken by ladies who whilst employed on this work would sing, the process was called Walking the wool. The process of Walking occurred over a long number of years up here.

Ken.

Again, I'm afraid not:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-pis1.htm