argh
Words and Language
Victor, my husband likes to give book titles followed by author, such as The Hospital Patient by Seymour Heiney, and others I probably shouldn't print here.
Hee hee! I love to assign 'alternate titles' to things - especially songs. For example, the 70's song, Have You Seen Her, by the Chi-Lites, I call the Amelia Earhart song. Or Elton John's Someone Shaved My Wife Tonight.
LOL! Very Clever, Dee and Vic!
There is a list of 'Books that Need to be Written' in the Great Book of Lists. The Hospital Patient is a gooder DD. My fav so far is 'Death by Ducks' which could also be cross referenced to the 'Plants I have Luved and Killed' list as a good reason something died.
Hmm, not sure I want to take credit for the Hospital Patient, lol. Whether it's a good thing or bad, I don't know if I would think of something like that! My DH says I have no sense of humor: I tell him I just have more class than he does, lol! Or that my sense of humor has evolved from the level of a 12-year-old boy... and then I laugh when he's not looking!
flibbertigibbet
so Victor does your wife have a recipe for carbonara by any chance?
??
her name and your references to garlic and Italians made me think maybe she's Italian and has a good recipe....maybe you were just teasing, it was shot in the dark.
I had a great carbonara dish once and I want to make it tonight.
Oh, okay. No, she is Latina. I am Italian (half - my dad's side).
I don't like carbonara so we don't make it.
then she must have even better recipes!
I tried to search on it in the recipe forum, I guess the search engine is out of commission.
Off topic again....sorry folks! Horrible habit!
after much searching, I've come to the conclusion I'm the only person who eats carbonara.
This message was edited Jan 6, 2010 2:56 PM
Have not verified these - came in an email. Interesting, though.
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:
They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & 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 "didnt have a pot to pee in", and were the lowest of the low.
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">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">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 whiskey. 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">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!
I've seen them take out old bones from a grave now in modern times! - they put them in a big hefty bag and then threw the bag in the back of a truck! lol!
- What gets me is that they had no refrigerators, I've seen the ice-houses they used to use, YucKy! lol!
I heard much of that while visiting a historic house in Sandwich MA...very interesting stuff!
If they took their yearly bath in May why didn't they just get married in May???
I heard the one about the coffins and the bells.
Victor, I think I got that e-mail too! Isn't it great?! This is exactly the kind of historical/word origin trivia I love. Thanks for sharing it.
I remember my mom saying "They don't have a pot to pee in or a window to through it out of" although she didn't say pee!
Interesting indeed! I wonder where the poor house was. My mom was always afraid of ending up there :-)
I liked that explanation for the rhyme about peas. It reminds me of Ring around the roses, pocket full of posies... a reference to wearing flowers during the time of the black plague.
'Ripped'
I happened to come across this in an article this morning ( I still read a paper every day!) and the way the word is used recently puzzles me. Ripped to me means torn or to tear apart ( or the old phrase 'ripped off' as in being cheated or similar) so how did it come to have meaning in terms of body appearance?
That's been around for a while. Also means drunk!
It is certainly an 'old' word, just wondering when it came to mean something to do with body appearance.
Sounds like it refers to the pronounced muscular ribs on body builders.
I know it as "inebriated also:-)
Yes but there is a significant difference in these meanings and that relating to muscular structure- I am wondering HOW that meaning came about.
From the appearance of the muscles when the person has low body fat. You see the sinews of the muscles, which appear 'ripped'.
I don't want to have to post a photo of myself...^_^
LOL!!! Aw, come on Victor! Let's see those ripped abs!
Thank you Victor!
No I dont need any pictures but if you feel so inclined go ahead!
This may not be the thread for me - never have sat down and read a dictionary for fun - have sat there looking for a word spelling without success and wondering how many options there could be!!
Oh come on Victor let's see the "six pack"!!
I like the encyclopedia more than the dictionary, lots more pictures and stuff, but then the internet took that over...
No I think That is a beer belly.
The guy looks like Benny Hill!
Exactly how I pictured you!
Like Benny Hill???
ok, this guy is the other "ripped"!
Just like the guy with that rippen six pack!! LOL
Well whatever it is , it is sure is different!
I think that is the first picture in this and the other threads is it not?
Hey I just found the possible answer to my original question about ripped:
*Ripped, a slang adjective used to describe human musculature that is well-defined, particularly the abdominal muscles. The adjective may derive from the sense that weight-lifting tears the muscle tissue for re-building, or from the rippled appearance of muscle.