Today I’m at the bottom of a different social strata, the ritzy Fernbrook Resort crowd, so I decided to delve into some of the different descriptive terms used that, historically, describe the different layers of society. If you want to know a bit about me I grew up beneath the very bottom rung of a different society’s social ladder. I was so poor that while other kids were wearing designer clothes I wore a Hefty Cinch Sac. Wearing a trash bag with holes cut out for my arms and legs put me in a lower social stratum then even the kids who wore potato sacks… who of course mocked me. And the only pet I ever had? It was a cardboard box. Of course it was a stray and not one of those expensive store purchased boxes. But I loved it all the same. One day I came home from school and my pet box was missing. I looked and looked but I couldn’t find it anywhere. My parents said it must have run away. Two nights later we had cardboard box for dinner.
Did you know that once upon a time the floors in the homes of the poor were dirt?
And from this came the custom of saying, ‘dirt poor.’
Wealthy folks had rock floors that would get slippery when wet so they spread straw (commonly called thresh) on the floor to secure their footing. To block the thresh from being kicked outside they placed a piece of wood in the doorway.
And so came into the custom of a doorway being referred to as the ‘thresh hold’.
Did you know that they used to use urine to tan animal skins? Poor families used to pee in a communal pot and once full the pot’s contents were sold to a tannery... those who had to do this to survive were called ‘piss poor’.
But worse than that were those who couldn't even afford to buy a pot...they ‘didn't have a pot to piss in’ and were considered lower than piss poor.
Did you know that hundreds of years ago most people got married in June not out of tradition but because May was the month of the year when the warmer weather made bathing more common, cleaning of clothing easier to do… and so on… So by June you smelled pretty good. However, just to be safe, the bride would carry a bouquet of flowers to hide any offensive odors that might still linger.
And so came the custom of carrying a bouquet when getting married.
Did you know that once upon a time when the bath of the home was filled that the man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean hot water, followed by any adult sons, then the women and finally the children. Last of all came the babies. And by then the water was so dirty that you could actually lose the baby in it.
And so came the custom of saying, ‘Don't throw the baby out with the bath water!’
Way back when poor homes were very low to the ground and had thatched roofs which consisted solely of thickly piled straw. Many animals including cats, dogs, mice, bugs etc., found a thatched roof the best place to protect themselves from the elements.
However when it rained the roof became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof.
And so came the custom of saying, ‘It’s raining cats and dogs.’
Because roofs were straw with little or no wood there was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This was a real nuisance, especially in the bedroom where bugs would mess up a clean bed.
And from this came the custom of saying, ‘Night, Night, Sleep Tight, Don’t let the bed bugs bite.
And this is also how and why the origin of the canopy bed, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top, came into being – it helped protect sleepers from falling creepy-crawlies.
Did you know that back in the old days only the richest people regularly ate meat? Poorer people were often vegetarians – not by choice, but by forces of economics. However when the poor did obtain meat it was always a cheap cut from a pig.
And from this came the custom of saying, ‘bringing home the bacon.’
Bringing home meat made the poor feel a little less poor… so they would hang the meat up and show it off to their guests before proudly cutting off a small bit to share.
And from this came the custom of saying, ‘sitting around and chewing the fat’.
Bread was divided according to status, bakery workers got the burnt loaf bottoms, families were sold the middle and the tops of the loaves? They went to the wealthiest of families.
And from this came the custom of referring to the rich as the, ‘upper crust’.
However being rich wasn’t a protection against all of life’s ills. Those with money often had plates of pewter. Unfortunately food high in acid, like tomatoes, leached the acid out of the plate and onto the food. Causing food poisoning. This is why for many centuries tomatoes were considered poisonous. The rich also preferred drinking out of lead cups. Poisonous lead when combined with alcohol could knock out a drinker out of commission for several days – leading people to believe that they were dead.
And from this came the custom of the, ‘dead drunk’.
However death being an uncertain thing families would often lay the imbiber out on a table then sit around the table, eating and drinking, to see if the ‘dead’ might awake.
And from this came the custom of holding, ‘a wake’.
Did you know that in years past that burial plots were often re used – they would dig up the coffin, remove the bones and then re use the grave. Shockingly, better than 1 in 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside. Folks were being buried alive. So came the short-lived custom of tying strings (attached to bells hung outside of the coffin) to the wrist of the deceased. If the bell was heard to ring they would dig up the deceased.
And from the deceased being found alive we received the custom of saying, ‘saved by the bell’.
And while being at the bottom of Fernbrook Resort society may not be the most favorable position there is still one rung lower in life – the ‘dead ringer’. The dead ringer was what the deceased person who was dug up too slowly was called.
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