Posted on 11/20/2011 5:11:29 PM PST by Jim Robinson
Where did “piss poor” come from ?
We older people need to learn something new every day...
Just to keep the grey matter tuned up.
Where did "Piss Poor" come from? Interesting History.
They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot.
And then once it was full 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 1500's
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 the 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 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 History was boring!!! So get out there and educate someone! ~~~
Share these facts with a friend. Inside every older person is a younger person wondering,
'What the heck happened?'
We'll be friends until we are old and senile.
Then we'll be new friends.
Smile, it gives your face something to do!
Soon we'll all be Piss Poor
Love>>>OldDog
In Mexico they still piss on the hides to tan them!
If you buy mexican shoes, don’t get them wet, they will smell just like their tanning fluid!
After the defeat of that mighty monarch, Mithridates, Gnaeus Pompeius found in his private cabinet a recipe for an antidote in his own handwriting; it was to the following effect: Take two dried walnuts, two figs, and twenty leaves of rue; pound them all together, with the addition of a grain of salt; if a person takes this mixture fasting, he will be proof against all poisons for that day.
:-). Very cool! Thanks Jim!
To take a statement with ‘a grain of salt’ or ‘a pinch of salt’ means to accept it but to maintain a degree of skepticism about its truth.
Origin
take with a pinch of saltThe idea comes from the fact that food is more easily swallowed if taken with a small amount of salt. Pliny the Elder translated an ancient antidote for poison with the words ‘be taken fasting, plus a grain of salt’.
Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, 77 A.D. translates thus:
After the defeat of that mighty monarch, Mithridates, Gnaeus Pompeius found in his private cabinet a recipe for an antidote in his own handwriting; it was to the following effect: Take two dried walnuts, two figs, and twenty leaves of rue; pound them all together, with the addition of a grain of salt; if a person takes this mixture fasting, he will be proof against all poisons for that day.
The suggestion is that injurious effects can be moderated by the taking of a grain of salt.
The figurative meaning, i.e. that truth may require moderation by the notional application of ‘a grain of salt’, didn’t enter the language until much later, no doubt influenced by classical scholars’ study of Ancient Greek texts like the works of Pliny. The phrase has been in use in English since the 17th century; for example, John Trapp’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments, 1647:
“This is to be taken with a grain of salt.”
The ‘pinch of salt’ variant is more recent. The earliest printed citation that I can find for it is F. R. Cowell’s Cicero & the Roman Republic, 1948:
“A more critical spirit slowly developed, so that Cicero and his friends took more than the proverbial pinch of salt before swallowing everything written by these earlier authors.”
That’s a piss poor analysis to a piss poor question, on a piss poor Sunday.
I thought it’s performance had been prevented with proper prior planning.
Does anyone know what made Bus wiser?
(ans: His wife came home with Schlitz in her pants.)
Baba ding!
Well—I screwed that one. Should have read:
Does anyone know what made Bud Wiser?
That’s what I’ve always heard. If a phrase origin has a “tidy” or “cute” explanation, it’s probably made up. Like “Mafia” coming from the words ma and fia meaning “my daughter!” in Italian. Not true. Nor is it true about “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge”. Although I’m not sure about “In like Flynn”. Supposedly referring to Errol Flynn’s sexual escapades. Maybe.
I always enjoy these tales about the history of your language, our sayings and customs.
BTTT
The type for both p and q are almost identical and can easily be mixed up.
Learned that in printing shop, circa 19 early 60's
****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. ****
An old boy named Bateson made small belfreys with bells to do this work. People called him nuts, and the term “Bats in the belfrey” meant someone who was not quite right.
I knew of a snake who was so poor he didn’t have a pit to hiss in.
(rimshot)
Mind your “Ps” and “Qs” also was a caution to the printers who used hand type. Lowercase Ps looked awfully close to Qs but usually were caught by the proof reader.
“Worth his salt.” Roman soldiers (and probably others) were paid in salt (salarium), so if he was good at his job, he was . . . Hence our word “salary”.
[Distantly related to thread]
“The Earl’s Bastard” referred to a commoner’s firstborn. On the wedding night, if the woman was good looking, the Earl got first dibs.
In an unrelated note..Pliny the Elder is the greatest beer I’ve ever had and the #1 ranked beer out of EVERY beer in the world on Beer Advocate....
I think the chamber pot was also called a thunder mug.
In the middle ages salesmen would sell pigs in a poke sack to farmers. Often the farmer found he had bought a dog or cat.
So, Don’t Buy A Pig In A Poke!
Forgot this! The item was known as Bateson’s Belfry and from there the term Bats in the Belfry meant someone who was not quite right.
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