Re:quiz. Old english sayings.

[MANICHAEAN]

I've written below some old English sayings, some of which relate back to the living conditions in early 16th century England.

Any ideas on their origins?


"Its raining cats & dogs"

"Dirt poor"

"Threshold"

"Bringing home the bacon"

"Chewing the fat"

"Upper crust"

"Holding a wake"

"The graveyard shift"

"Saved by the bell"

"A dead ringer"

[Nikhar]

Yeah, I've always wondered how can it rain cats and dogs.

[MANICHAEAN]

Most dwellings in those days had thatched roofs (thick straw piled high) with no wood underneath.

It was a good place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice etc) lived in the roof.

When it rained, it became slippery and sometimes its inhabitants would fall.

Hence; "Its raining cats & dogs"

Mind you I can't in all honesty visualise a dog being that nimble to get up there!

[kiki1982]

That has been long discredited, though, due to improbability. In the words of the guy of the Online Etymology Dictionary: 'Ever see a cat react to a rainstorm by climbing up on an exposed roof?' Right... no?

Though there are other speculations.

One is that dogs were a symbol for the god Odin in pagan times who was associated with rain and cats with witches (who were often reported to change into their cats) who rode the wind. Hence, 'raining cats and dogs'. However, that has been regarded as implausible too, because the expression is not so old.

The simple explanation would be that 'cat and dog' are a symbol for their strife and so just a metaphor for 'wild' or something. But that has been considered as implausible too because there is no evidence that suggests that.

However, Swift seems to some up with a plausible idea in his satirical poem A Description of a City Shower in 1710:

Now in contiguous Drops the Flood comes down,
Threat'ning with Deluge this devoted Town.
...
Now from all Parts the swelling Kennels flow,
And bear their Trophies with them as they go:
Filth of all Hues and Odours seem to tell
What Street they sail'd from, by their Sight and Smell.
They, as each Torrent drives, with rapid Force,
From Smithfield or St. Pulchre's shape their Course,
And in huge Confluent join'd at Snow-Hill Ridge,
Fall from the Conduit, prone to Holbourn-Bridge.
Sweeping from Butchers Stalls, Dung, Guts, and Blood,
Drown'd Puppies, stinking Sprats, all drench'd in Mud,
Dead Cats and Turnip-Tops come tumbling down the Flood.

In 1653, Brome used the expression in his play The City Wit or The Woman wears the Breeches in a somewhat modified form:

'It shall raine... Dogs and Polecats'

Obviously this use was rather a linguistic joke than a dog and a real cat, but the fact that he jokes about it must have meant that the public was familiar with the expression by that time.

Swift uses the expression in its full form in 1738 (so 28 years after his first try):

'I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs.'

As the Northern English expression 'raining stair-rods' does't mean either that once upon a time, stair-rods were really falling from the sky, 'raining cats and dogs' must be a metaphorical use a well, or maybe with its roots in the gruesome streets of London.

(with thanks to The Phrase Finder)

[Niamh]

Saved by the bell originates from graveyards. Its a well known fact that in the past when people have fallen into a coma that they were believed dead and were buried. Can imagine this resulted in some waking up and finding themselves buried alive. In some cemeteries, people were buried with a string tied to their finger and attached to a bell so that if it did turn out that they were infact not dead they could ring it, i reckon in a panicked frenzy, and would catch the attention of the graveyard warden who would dig them up. They were saved by the bell. I think Dead ringer comes from the same origin. :)

[MANICHAEAN]

Niamh

Bulls eye!

[Whifflingpin]

When it rains cats and dogs, the road is full of poodles.

Threshold is literally an area where corn was threshed.

I think "saved by the bell" is more likely to relate to boxing or wrestling, in which the bell signifies the end of a round, giving respite to the weaker party. (Unless, of course, you can find instances of the phrase from before the use of bells to end a round, in which case I'd say that the phrase derives from time-keeping at sea and marked the end of a watch.)

Which leads to "wake" - literally a watch - in this case a watch over a body between death and burial.

[MANICHAEAN]

W

Try this one on for "thresh hold"

If the floor was made of dirt, the inhabitants were referred to as "dirt poor"

The better off had slate floors which when wet got slippery. Hence they spread thresh (straw). To stop it getting out the door when opened a piece of wood was placed in the entrance. Hence thresh hold.

[prendrelemick]

Threshing is hitting wheat or barley with a hinged stick to knock the grain from the stem.

Threshold, dates back to when the barn and the farm house were all one building. The threshing floor would be inbetween the two areas. There would be a raised step to keep the grain on the threshing floor, The threshold. To get into the living quarters you had to step over it.

The Upper Crust (A guess) before plates were common, a trencher was used, that is a hard crusty unrisen bread, (like a pizza base.) The lord of the manor and his family would eat the meat off the top of their crusts, then pass them down the table for the servants and dogs to knaw at. As they ate only the upper part, they were the upper crust.

[MANICHAEAN]

Or P

Bread was divided according to status. Workers, serfs & mangy curs got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle and the master or honoured guests got the top (i.e. upper crust)

Your mention of the old name for the serving plate always brings to mind that phrase in Shakespeare "I found you as a morsel upon dead Caesar's trencher"

[prendrelemick]

Your explanation sounds much more likley.

John Ridd of Lorna Doone discribed himself as a trencher-man. (he had a good appetite)


There is a Dead Ringer in the anceint game of quiots(quoits?) Where the rim of the quoit lies over the top of the peg, blocking any chance of throwing a "ringer" where the quiot lands over the peg.

I can't see how that leads to dead ringer as it is used today though.

[kasie]

According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 'the graveyard shift' dates from WWII and was the shift in the munitions factories that started at midnight, the 'witching hour' when the dead walked, no doubt a wry comment on how the workers felt!

'Dead ringer' apparently comes from the world of the Turf when a horse would be entered with the racing record of a previous winner to which it bore a marked physical resemblance. 'Dead' is often used in slang for 'extremely', as in 'dead drunk' or 'dead tired' - back to the graveyard shift!

[MANICHAEAN]

K
Sounds similiar to the "dog watch" on oil rigs.

[prendrelemick]

Chewing the Fat : Aways brings to mind a group of Eskimos sat chin wagging around a pot of seal blubber in their cosy igloo. Thats what comes of reading "Stories from the frozen North" as a boy.

[OrphanPip]

Haha, Eskimo is considered a pejorative term in Canada. The natives of Northern Canada and Greenland prefer to be called Inuit. The Inuit are also a distinctive culture from the Yupik in Alaska and Siberia, who are also grouped under the umbrella term Eskimo.

Anyway, from a quick google search. Chewing the fat seems to have originally had the meaning of grumbling and complaining, chewing the rag seems to have been a synonymous term that was around at the same time too. So, it seems to have gotten its meaning from someone looking like they were chewing something unpleasant as they grumbled.

[prendrelemick]

I used "Eskimo" to hark back to more ignorant times, when I read and believed such tales.

[MANICHAEAN]

If you were able to put pork on the table, that was something special. Visitors came over and they could see the pork hung up. So 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 sit and "chew the fat". i.e In today's parlance sit & have a gossip.

[OrphanPip]

If you were able to put pork on the table, that was something special. Visitors came over and they could see the pork hung up. So 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 sit and "chew the fat". i.e In today's parlance sit & have a gossip.

Apparently, from what I could look up, this explanation is anachronistic. The idiom doesn't emerge in print until the late 19th century, when such an explanation seems highly unlikely.

[prendrelemick]

I remember sides of bacon hung up in farm houses, including our own, in the 60's. The hooks are still there in the back kitchen.

Cutting a slice off to share with guests was not unusual then.

[kasie]

Brewers suggests 'bringing home the bacon' refers to winning a pig at a fair - some country fetes still have bowling for a pig as an event, though these days the 'pig' is often already in some form of ham rather than a piglet to be fattened at home.

[prendrelemick]

A pig could often be won by "Climbing the greasy pole" at fairs.

As in The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy


They erected greasy-poles for climbing, with smoked hams and
local cheeses at the top. They placed hurdles in rows for
jumping over; across the river they laid a slippery pole,
with a live pig of the neighbourhood tied at the other end,
to become the property of the man who could walk over and
get it.


So nowadays you climb the greasy pole to sucess, and bring home the bacon

[kasie]

Thanks, plm, I knew there was a 'literary' reference but couldn't place it - shame on me, a 'Darset' gal by marriage!

[dafydd manton]

Or P

Bread was divided according to status. Workers, serfs & mangy curs got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle and the master or honoured guests got the top (i.e. upper crust)

Your mention of the old name for the serving plate always brings to mind that phrase in Shakespeare "I found you as a morsel upon dead Caesar's trencher"

Hence the story of the baker who made the bread rolls for the investiture of the Prince of Wales in Caernarfon. Formerly he had been known as Dai The Crust, but thereafter advertised himself as Dai The Upper Crust!

[MANICHAEAN]

Dafydd
Never heard that one. Laughed my socks off!