Just Because it’s Written Doesn’t Make it So
About 1999 I received this great email about the Victorian Age~ I shared it with everyone, it’s from the History Channel, that’s a credible source, right?
I wanted to share it with all of you, but before I posted it, I thought I’d make sure it was accurate - I mean I thought the Victorian age is in the 1800′s to early 1900′s. That confirmation turned into hours of investigation. It’s true, history is not boring!
The email I received was called “Facts about the Victorian Age”. There was a ton of people who received and disputed this letter! A lot of people got the exact same letter entitled “Facts about the 1500′s” and here is an example.
Facts about the 1500′s.
by Halvor Moorshead
For the last couple of years an item has been circulating around the Internet about so-called Facts about the 1500s (sometimes 1600s). A quick search using the search-engine Google pointed to over 400 websites that were carrying this piece. Interesting reading. The problem is that most of it is completely invented. The original author is not credited in any of the versions we have seen. Here we present the original version and our attempt to correct the errors. (The truth will be written in italics.)
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 still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.
There is no evidence that June was a popular month to get married until the last 100 years. Flowers have been associated with weddings since the earliest times, probably as symbol of fertility.
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.”
This explanation makes no sense when you consider the expression and its meaning. Additionally bathing was so rare that there were no bathing tubs.
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 dogs, 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.”
The phrase “raining cats and dogs” had nothing to do with animals living in thatched roofs
A believable explanation is given in Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: mythology associated the cat with rain and the dog with wind.
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 really 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. Canopy beds may have originated as a means of keeping out flying insects but if you think about it, people rich enough to afford a canopy bed a huge investment in the 1500s would also be living in homes with proper ceilings.
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying “dirt poor.”
Probably correct except that the expression is American and from centuries later.
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 kept 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, a “thresh hold.”
The term threshold predates the 12th century according to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. And isn’t wet straw at least as slippery as wet slate?
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 the 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.”
The phrase “peas porridge in the pot nine days old” had nothing to do with life in the 1500s. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, this chant was not used before 1762.
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.”
We couldn’t find a convincing explanation for chew the fat. One was that it was of US Civil War origin, another that it was from Cockney Rhyming Slang meaning “have a chat” and rhyming slang came was not known until after WWI.
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with a 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.
It is true that tomatoes were thought to be poisonous until about 1830, however tomatoes were extremely rare in Europe in the 1500s and in any case are not acidic enough to affect pewter.
Most people did not have pewter plates, but had trenchers, a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Often trenchers were made from stale bread, which was so old and hard that they could be used for quite some time. Trenchers were never washed and a lot of times worms and mold got into the wood and old bread. After eating off wormy, moldy trenchers, one would get “trench mouth.”
The expression trench mouth was first used during WWI.
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.”
This one may be true; the term upper crust does predate the 1500s.
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock them 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.”
A wake refers to what the visitors do, not what you expect the corpse to do! In this context a wake means a watch or a vigil. It originated from an all-night watch kept in church before certain holy days. It later became associated with fairs and revelries held at such times. Some towns in the north of England still observe local holidays called wakes. (Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable).
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 re-opening 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 thought 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”.
Saved by the bell is a boxing term dating from the 1930s and dead ringer is from horse racing about 1890 and refers to a horse or somebody who looks virtually identical to someone else.
And that’s the truth, whoever said that history was boring!
History is not boring and the real explanations are just as interesting and not hard to find either!
This article originally appeared in our February/March 2002 issue.
I am surprised that I believed this email, hook line and sinker! It’s like I wanted to believe the stories! It’s fun hearing how it made it’s way around the US over the years~ I wonder how many others believed it! I am always amazed at the Power of the Written Word! Have you ever believed something like this?
May 19th, 2010 at 4:14 am
Thanks, Linda, for clearing up yet another one of “THOSE E-MAILS” that circulate over and over and over and over again. It seems to be human nature to think that if it’s in print, it must be true. Most of the stuff that circulates can usually be pretty well confirmed or debunked with a simple visit to Snopes. The Snopes article dealing with this particular one is at http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/1500.asp.
Admittedly, I was with you when I first saw this several years ago. I thought it was fun historical trivia, and assumed it was probably accurate, at least at some level. The ones that really get me are the politically oriented e-mails that slam whichever party happens to be in power at the time, and the ones about how using your cell phone at the gas pump will cause a disastrous explosion, or the latest virus that will turn your laptop into a molten blob if you open a postcard from Hallmark, and on and on and on ad nauseum.
Again…I say to all those who continue to FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: . . . http://www.Snopes.com!
Thanks, Linda, for giving me a perfect platform for blowing off a little steam this morning! That’s why I call my blog, “The Blow Hole”! <<>>
May 19th, 2010 at 5:59 am
Thanks Steve! I was hesitant even posting this because it is totally for me~ and yet you read it and it was for you too! I have to follow your advice, it’s all about Snopes.com! I won’t forget!
May 19th, 2010 at 10:48 am
Linda,
I’ve been caught in this same predicament many times. If there is something in writing, it is so easy to assume that it’s correct. After having a few embarrassing experiences of sending out emails that friends corrected shortly thereafter, I learned to check snopes.com before forwarding on interesting stuff.
The article about life in the 1500′s was fun to read … kind of let your imagination play the game of what it was like back then. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
.-= Darlene Davis´s last blog ..Success With A Potato Gun? =-.
May 19th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
Linda,
I really enjoyed this post. I have heard several of those “myths” before too, and they sound quite convincing if one doesn’t know better. This only demonstrates that doing thorough research and due diligence before we make decisions in business and life can save us a lot of time and effort. This post makes me smile. Thanks for sharing!
Krista
.-= Krista Abbott´s last blog ..Recycled Dreams =-.
May 20th, 2010 at 8:18 am
Thanks Krista~ You are so right! We need thorough research before we make any decisions!! I know I’ve learned that the hard way!!
May 20th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
Hey Linda…after reading through all of these it sounds like someone was bored one day and started creating the origination of these phrases by thinking through what they thought life might be like. Some of them seem believable and some do not…but it does show some cleverness by the author and inventor of these things.
It was a fun read and I appreciate you sharing this with us.
.-= Bruce Backman´s last blog ..Life is full of second chances if you know what you are looking for =-.
May 21st, 2010 at 3:04 pm
These facts/falsehoods are somewhat harmless… but I always wonder when I see where I’ve been wrong (yes, I fell victim to some of those old tales, too). What other things have we merely read/heard and then fallen into a limiting belief about that we have yet to discover we’re wrong??
I think about idioms like “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.”
“Save your money for a rainy day”
“Look out for Number 1″
and the like
May we ever learn to be more objective when we form our beliefs.
P
May 21st, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Thanks Paul~ I think your choice of words, ‘fell victim’ discribes how I felt when I realized the Untruth. It’s crazy!
May 21st, 2010 at 11:35 pm
Very interesting post Linda, you’ve certainly been doing some research.
It’s funny how a particular saying can carry on for so many years, & because it has done so, we assume it to be correct. I’m pleased we have someone like you Linda to straighten these things out for us
Thanks for sharing
Cheers
Toni
.-= Toni King´s last blog ..Taking Time Out. =-.
May 22nd, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Hi Linda,
Thanks for sharing this with us.
The ideas shared are written in such a way that your mind could be convinced of their validity. Especially those left brain thinkers.
They seemed even logical in some cases (Left brainer here).
I love to study history. I found my best source of it to be my grandparents when they were around. Now online it is hard to determine what is true or not.
Thanks again.
Make it a great day!
God Bless,
-ed
.-= Edward´s last blog ..Are You Ready For The Right Place & Time to Show Up In Your Life? =-.
May 22nd, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Yes, that’s something that we miss without grandparents being regularly in our lives, even when they are living. Now-a-day’s we move so far apart!
May 24th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Hi Linda,
I’ve also been guilty of just mindlessly passing this stuff along as fact. While it is fun to read and relatively harmless, it is kind of sad how gullible we are when something is written down. Thanks for clearing all this up.
.-= Debbie Stevens´s last blog ..The Picture of Success =-.
May 24th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
Yes Debbie~ it makes me chuckle at how gullible we are
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September 16th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
It’s amazing that my new neurologist insisted I be tested for Lyme’s disease after years of being confirmed by MS specialists all over the country. He said there is always a chance. Unfortunately, after all the testing, he confirmed MS too! Do you have Lyme disease?
Linda
September 28th, 2010 at 1:05 am
Yea I have believe many stories like these. Mainly get rich quick schemes that now I am smart enough to know are scams. I think it is easier for us to believe things that are written because we can’t hear or see the person who is writing it. Therefore it is a lot harder to tell if they are lying
September 28th, 2010 at 5:57 am
Miguel~
Yes, you are so right! That’s why the question is always “Transparency” while online! That is one of the posts in my drafts folder, man I wish I had more time!
Linda