I offer this with no comment. It arrived today in an email:
Reasons for sayings, circa 1500
People get married in June, because the annual bath was in May and they still smelt reasonable.
Baths were big tubs hauled into the house, Man of the house first, then sons, women and children and finally the babies. By then the water was so daughter you could loose someone. Hence "throwing the baby out with the bath water".
Houses had thatched roofs, thick straw with no wood underneath. Animals slept up there in the warmth. When it rained and became slippery, they would slide down," hence raining cats and dogs."
Only the wealthy had floors made of anything except dirt, "hence dirt poor". The wealthy had slate floor which got slippery, so they would spread thresh (rushes) over it to keep their footing. As winter progressed they added more and more, until when you opened the door the thresh would blow out. So they put a board across the entry to stop this. "Hence crossing the threshhold."
Sometimes they would obtain pork and feel very special, when company came over they would hang the bacon for all to see as a sign of their wealth and to show a man could really "bring home the bacon."
Special guests got a little bit cut off and could sit around and "chew the fat."
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leech into the food, as this happened most often with tomatoes they stopped eating them for 400 years.
Most people didn't have pewter plates but used a wooden board with a trench cut in it. These were never washed and after awhile got worms in the wood. After eating off them people got "trench mouth."
Bread was divided according to status. The workers got the burnt base, the family the middle and the quests the top crust. "Hence the Upper crust"
Lead cups were used for drinking ale and whisky. The combination would sometimes knock them out for days. People out walking would find them laying on the roadside and return them home burial. The corpse was laid on the table for a couple of days, whilst the family continued eating and drinking around them, waiting to see if they would wake up. "hence the holding of a wake."
England is old and small, so was running out of burial space. They would dig up a coffin remove the bones, and reuse it. They found one in twentyfive had scratch marks, and it was clear they were burying people alive. To rectify this they tied a piece of string to the corpses wrist, the string coming out of a hole in the coffin and up through the graound, where it was attached to abell. Someone would sit up all night to listen for the bell. "hence the graveyard shift" and "saved by thebell" and "a dead ringer".
OP
