"Good Night, Sleep Tight"

During the 16th century (Shakespeare's time), mattresses were secured to bedframes by ropes. The ropes were pulled on to tighten them and make the bed firmer (and safer) to sleep on. Thus the expression "good night, sleep tight!"

"Rule of Thumb"

Perhaps too shameful in this day and age, there was an old English law which stated a man could not beat his wife with anything wider than his thumb. Sad history.

"Wet Your Whistle"

Years ago in England, men who frequented pubs had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic mugs. To call for service, they used the whistle.

"Mind Your P's and Q's"

Here we are in English pubs. Ale is ordered by pints and quarts. In old England, when customers became unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts of ale and settle down.

"Jeep"

This is from the army abbreviation for the General Purpose vehicle - the G.P.

"The Whole Nine Yards"

During World War II, fighter planes in the Pacific were armed with .50 caliber machine guns. The ammunition for these machine guns were in belts which measured 27 feet (nine yards). When firing upon a target, the pilot would use all of their ammo, or, "the whole nine yards".

"Life in the 1500's"

This came to me in my email. How true all of it is I do not know, but it is real interesting reading keeping with the theme of this page. I cut and pasted it verbatim. Enjoy!

Anne Hathaway was the wife of William Shakespeare. She married at the age of 26, which was unusual for the time. Most people married at age 11 or 12. Life was not as romantic as we may picture it. Here are some examples.

Anne Hathaway's home was a 3 bedroom house with a small parlor that was seldom used (only for company), kitchen, and no bathroom. Mother and Father shared a bedroom. Anne had a queen size bed but did not sleep alone. She had 2 other sisters and they also shared the bed with 6 servant girls (before she married). They didn't sleep lengthwise as we do; they all slept on the bed crosswise.

At least they had a bed. The other bedroom was shared by her 6 brothers and 30 field workers. They didn't have a bed. Everyone just wrapped up in their blanket and slept on the floor. They had no indoor heating so all the extra bodies kept them warm. They were also small people. The men only grew to be about 5'6" and the women were 4'8". In all they had 27 people living in their house.

Most people married in June. Why? They took their yearly bath in May and were still smelling pretty good by June, although they were beginning to smell. So brides would carry a bouquet of flowers to hide their b.o.. They took their yearly bath in May, but it was just a big tub that they would fill with hot water. The man of the house would get the privilege of the nice clean water. Then all the sons & other men, then the women, and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so thick that someone could get lost in it. Thus the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

I'll describe their houses a little. The roofs were thatched, made of thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath. The roof was the only place where little animals could get warm, so the pet dogs, cats and other small animals, plus mice, rats and bugs - all lived in the roof. When it rained the thatch became slippery and sometimes animals would slip and fall off the roof. Thus the saying, "It's raining cats and dogs."

Since there was nothing to stop things from falling into the house, people had to clean up a lot. This posed a real problem in the bedroom, where bugs & animal droppings could really mess up beds. They found that making beds with big posts and hanging a sheet over the top would prevent that problem. That's where those beautiful big 4 poster canopy beds came from.

When you entered the house you would notice most had dirt floors. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt; that's where the saying "dirt poor" came from.

The wealthy would have slate floors. That was fine, but in the winter the slate would get slippery when it got wet. So people spread thresh on the floor to help them keep their footing. As the winter wore on they added more and more thresh, until when you opened the door the thresh would start slipping out. So they put a piece of wood at the entry way, a "thresh hold."

Mostly they ate vegetables, they didn't get much meat. They would eat stew for dinner then leave the leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew would have food in it that had been in there for a month! Thus the rhyme, "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."

Sometimes they got hold of some pork. That was a special event; they even had a rack in the parlor where they would hang some bacon to show it off when company came. It was a sign of wealth and showed that a man could really "bring home the bacon."

They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."

If you had money your plates were made out of pewter. Some of their food had a high acid content and some of the lead would leach out into the food. They noticed it happened a lot with tomatoes, so they stopped eating tomatoes for 400 years. Most people didn't have pewter plates, though. They had trenchers, pieces of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. They never washed their boards, and a lot of times worms would get into the wood. After eating off the trencher with worms they would get "trench mouth."

If you were traveling and wanted to stay at an Inn, they usually provided the bed but not the board. Bread was divided according to status. Workers would get the burned bottom of the loaf, the family would get the middle, and guests would get the top, or the "upper crust."

They also had lead cups and when they drank their ale and whiskey the combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. They would be walking along the road and there would be someone knocked out and they thought they were dead. So they would pick them up and take them home and get them ready to bury. They realized that maybe not all of the people they were burying were dead. So they would lay them out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and, the family would gather around to eat and drink and wait to see if they would wake up. That's where the custom of holding a "wake" came from.

Since England is so old and so small, they started running out of places to bury people. So they started digging up some coffins and would take the bones to a house and re-use the grave. They started opening these coffins and found some had scratch marks on the inside. One out of 25 coffins were that way and they realized they had still been burying people alive. So they thought they would tie a string on their wrist and 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 to listen for the bell. That is how the saying "graveyard shift" originated.

If the bell rang they would know that someone was "saved by the bell" or was a "dead ringer."