“p*** poor” and other sayings

[divemaster5734]

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 a day 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 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 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 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”.

It puts our lifestyle and living standards in perspective, doesn't it?

[caleb08]

This was very interesting. Thank you for posting it for us.

[tyron]

How incredibly interesting. Thank you Divemaster.

[tim5400]

interesting tale...could be true...

[zantac]

.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.

I have been giggling to my self constantly since I read that & my family thinks I have lost the plot.

So does this mean all DV members

لم يكن لديك وعاء للتبول في

(dont have a pot to piss in in Arabic)

sorry forgot to add my old man did used to say

Never push your granny when she is shaving.

Why i have no idea????

Edited August 19, 2011 by zantac

[tim5400]

dead ringer

Meaning

An exact duplicate.

Origin

We use phrases all the time without really giving their meaning a great deal of thought. You may well know that dead ringer means exact duplicate, but why is that? To a non-English speaker the two terms appear to have nothing in common. So, why dead; why ringer?

Let's first dispense with the nonsensical idea that's sometimes put forward as the origin of this phrase, i.e. that it refers to people who were prematurely buried and who pulled on bell ropes that were attached to their coffins in order to attract attention. We dealt with that notion previously in saved by the bell. That theory has even less going for it as an explanation of 'dead ringer' than it has for 'saved by the bell'. At least in that case the meaning of the phrase has some connection with the supposed explanation, but how does the premature burial derivation of 'dead ringer' explain why it means 'exact duplicate'? There's no evidence for this idea. Better not to dwell on it any longer and get on with the real origin, and back to why dead; why ringer?

A ringer is a horse substituted for another of similar appearance in order to defraud the bookies. This word originated in the US horse-racing fraternity at the end of the 19th century. The word is defined for us in a copy of the Manitoba Free Press from October 1882:

"A horse that is taken through the country and trotted under a false name and pedigree is called a 'ringer.'"

It has since been adopted into the language to mean any very close duplicate. As a verb, 'ring' has long been used to mean 'exchange/substitute' in a variety of situations, most of them illegal. From the same period is the term 'ring castors', meaning to surreptitiously exchange hats. Castors, or casters, were hats made from beaver fur. From the 20th century we have the Australian phrase, 'ring in the gray (or knob)', meaning to substitute a double-sided penny for a genuine one. Coming more up to date we have 'car ringing', which is the replacing of the identification numbers on a stolen car with those from a genuine (usually scrapped) vehicle.

So, that's ringer; what about dead? Dead, in the sense of lifeless, is so commonly used that we tend to ignore its other meanings. The meaning that's relevant here is exact or precise. This is demonstrated in many phrases; 'dead shot', 'dead centre', 'dead heat', etc.

So, 'dead ringer' is literally the same as 'exact duplicate'. It first came into use soon after the word ringer itself, in the US at the end of the 19th century. The earliest reference I can find that confirms the 'exact duplicate' meaning is from the Oshkosh Weekly Times, June 1888, in a court report of a man charged with being 'very drunk':

"Dat ar is a markable semlance be shoo", said Hart looking critically at the picture. "Dat's a dead ringer fo me. I nebber done see such a semblence."

[zantac]

“The people of Afghanistan don’t like the Flintstones but the residents of Abu Dhabi do.”

[zantac]

Rule of Thumb

An old English law declared that a man could not beat his wife with a stick any larger than the diameter of his thumb.

Wet your whistle

Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used to blow the whistle to get some service.

[tommyboy]

I have one more to add: "Ring around a rosy" is smallpox and the way it appears as a ring around a rosy, round bump on the skin. "Pocket full of posies" is because dead people, without embalming, stink. "Ashes to ashes, we all fall down" anybody who had contact with that person was darn near sure to die, too.