Prairie Spy

by Linda, Alan

  Crack a smile. At about this same time in history, the lack of hygiene had a negative effect on one’s complexion. Women would spread bee’s wax over their facial skin to smooth out and treat their accumulated skin damage. While this would happen at the local women’s parlors, if one woman were to stare overmuch at another woman, she might be told: “Mind your own bee’s wax.” Should a woman smile, the wax would crack, and that’s where the expression “crack a smile” came from.

  Back then, ladies wore corsets, and the ideal waist size was about 14 inches, believe it or not. That was the goal, anyway, and these corsets were laced up pretty tight, so tight that the wearer could not bend over, sit down, play cards, dance, walk, or even laugh. We now have the expression “straight laced” to refer to people who stiffly resist life’s temptations. Resisting is easy when you cannot move.

  Playing with a full deck came from early England, and referred to a tax levied on playing cards. To make the tax less offensive, the authorities only taxed the ace of spades. Those people who were so shortsighted as to refuse to pay the tax only bought 51 cards, and tried to play that way. People mostly thought this was pretty dumb, and we now extend this expression to other people we think are dumb, when we say “he’s not playing with a full deck.”

  Words are fun.

  §

  Honeymoon

  We’re going to continue my love affair with the English language as we look into some more words that have arisen in my path over the last few weeks. The first word that caught my eye—or ear, I guess--came when a wife referred to her husband’s expanding waist size as his new “girth.”

  I thought to myself—now, that’s a word one doesn’t hear much anymore. Girth. It’s a nice sounding word that somewhat unfairly doesn’t get to be used much any more. It’s actually derived from a word in carpentry, girt, which refers to something that holds two corner posts together, or something like that. So that’s kind of like something that holds your guts in, which girth kind of does.

  As horse riders also know, girth is the strapping that holds the saddle on the horse’s back.

  Ah hah! Wife. Husband. Saddle. That has to be a connection. Connection or not, it’s still a nice word.

  The next new word that popped up in my path comes from an accepted practice way back 2000 years before the birth of Christ, when the new father-in-law was expected to supply his new son-in-law with all the mead the son could drink for the first month of his marriage. Mead of course is a liquor—kind of a beer made out of grain and honey—and was valuable back then because first, in the process of brewing itself, the bacterial process involved purified the water; and second, honey is just about the only food around that will not spoil, no matter how it is packaged, stored, ignored, so the drink made from it also kept well.

  The fact that this “honor” of keeping your new son-in-law drunk fell to a parent who probably wanted the best for his daughter seems kind of paradoxical, in that if the daughter did find and marry an upstanding young man, still, all that booze for a month might turn out not to be the best thing. Maybe fathers were just protecting their daughters’ chastity—get the guy drunk; keep him drunk.

  Anyway, the new word is “honeymoon.” Back then, time was measured against a calendar based on lunar cycles, and this month following the marriage was generally referred to back then as the “honey month.” Hence, honeymoon. It definitely has a much better ring to it than, for example, whiskymoon, or Budweisermoon. Boozemoon. Comamoon.

  It probably wouldn’t be long before the new young bride got the groom aside, and told him to mind his p’s and q’s.

  Which is the next term we’re going to explain---p’s and q’s. This next word comes from booze also, and goes back to merry olde England, where, in the pubs, all beer and ale and whatever was sold in—guess what?—pints and quarts. Thus, when the patrons became drunkenly unruly, the bartender admonished them to “mind your p’s and q’s, or you’ll have to leave.”

  There’s more terminology that comes from these old inns and taverns. Back then, some patrons of pubs—who at that time carried their drinking vessel around with them—had their glazed clay mugs manufactured with a whistle built into the handle. Those patrons who minded their p’s and q’s were thus allowed to “wet their whistles,” namely, to drink more booze, which they called for by blowing the whistle on their empty cup.

  One other term, “the whole nine yards,” is believed to originate back in this same era, when tall and fancy drinking glasses—which were something on the order of a couple of feet tall-- were referred to as “yards.” Sailors just fresh into Liverpool from sailing the seven seas considered it quite necessary to hit all nine pubs that existed back then in Liverpool, and to drink a complete one of these at each pub, hence the term, “the whole nine yards” was born. That much booze, they probably couldn’t even spell p or q.

  Enough about booze. Let’s talk about the condiment “ketchup,” and where that term came from. It turns out that the Dutch were heavy users and importers of this stuff back in—you guessed it—the 1700’s. It came from China, and wasn’t even made from tomatoes back then. Instead, it was an Asian concoction of salted and spiced edible fungi (incidentally, in case you’re not certain as to the pronunciation of that, the “gi” is soft, as in “ji.”) such as mushrooms and smut (a mold that grows on corncobs which people consider a delicacy). The Chinese word for it was ke-tsiap, which the Dutch respelled to ketjap, which is pronounced just like we say it—ketchup.

  Finally, the word “lady” goes way back, like to the seventh century in Old England, when it was spelled hladfdige. The “h” is silent; so is the “f.” And the “ge.” In the thirteenth century, the term changed to “levedi”; in the fourteenth, it changed to “levdi”; and finally to “ladie” and “lady” in the sixteenth.

  What did it mean way back when? It referred to the woman who was the best bread maker in the castle, or village.

  English is such a glorious language.

  §

  Raining Cats and Dogs

  This is a column about the English language.

  From early England, back in the early 1500s, we get a pretty interesting bunch of traditions and expressions. For instance, do you know why people now get married in June? That traces back to when civilization in the winter could not readily provide either a warm place to take a bath, or any way to easily warm the water to begin with. Along comes May. The river thaws, people bathe, good smelling young men and women do what they’ve done since time began, and when June comes, they still smell good enough to get married.

  They didn’t smell all that good. That’s why brides carried bouquets of flowers.

  Even bathing wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. Wait! “Cracked up?” Before we can use the English language to explain more about bathing, we have to deal with “cracked up.” The word “crack” comes from archaic English. It used to mean a “burglar,” somebody that took something.

  Then the Navy got hold of it, and began to apply it to sailing ships which ran with full sail in high winds on high seas, and called it “cracking on.” Usually there was one result of running full sail in those conditions: You cracked up. You broke your ship.

  Bathing wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be, because there was a hierarchy of bathing order. First came the man of the house, who got the nice clean water. Next, came other men of the house, after which came the sons. Finally it was the women’s turn, and last of all came the babies. The water got pretty black from all the dirt and grime. This is where the expression: “Throwing out the baby with the bathwater” came from.

  Olde merry England got a lot of rain. People lived in huts with roofs made of grass tied into bundles, or thatches, to keep the rain out. These thatches were piled high on a light timber framework. During cold weather, cats and dogs and other small animals burrowed into those roofs to keep warm. If it rained
real hard, the grass became slippery. Hence the answer to the question: “How hard did it rain?” Well, it rained cats and dogs.

  These roofs didn’t hold much out. Many small bugs and mice fell through into the living area. This is the origin of canopy beds, because an old blanket or something kept falling rodents and bugs at least out of the bed, and onto the dirt floor.

  The expression “dirt poor” came from this era, too, because wealthier people had stone, or slate, floors. If you didn’t, you were dirt poor. Masonry floors got real slippery when the thatched roofs leaked, letting water in, or when garbage and meat scraps got strewn about. To correct this, folks threw straw–which was called “thresh”-- on the floor. As wet weather or winter drew on, and the thresh got deep, a board had to be installed across the bottom of the door opening to keep the thresh inside. That’s where the term “thresh hold” came from.

  Meat in those days was difficult if not impossible to come by; pork especially so. A slab of bacon was often hung inside as a sign of personal wealth for all visitors to see when they came over. The expression “bringing home the bacon” still describes someone who is successful at providing for others. If the visitor was truly welcome, he was given some fatty bacon to chew on, and that’s where the expression “chewing the fat” came from.

  During this era, plagues often swept through the country, and places to bury people became difficult to find. The people would dig up old graves, take the bones to a “bone-house” where they were stored, and reuse the old coffin and grave site.

  One out of 25 of these wood coffins showed scratch marks on the inside, which meant that loved ones were occasionally buried alive. After that, when they buried someone, they tied a string around the wrist of the cadaver, and ran the string up above ground to a bell. Someone would then sit in the graveyard at night and listen for signs of life.

  And that’s where the expression “graveyard shift” came from.

  And the expression “dead ringer.”

  And the expression “saved by the bell.”

  §

  Ring Around the Rosie

  As I was having coffee during fellowship hour at the church, the conversation turned toward old sayings. You know them—sayings like: “A penny saved is a penny earned”; “It’s raining cats and dogs”; “It’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey (one of my favorites, which I did NOT bring up in church).

  This turned into a round robin, where for a time, we exchanged sayings along with their meanings. “Raining cats and dogs” refers to a time in England when everyone lived in a little house with a roof made of thatched grasses. When it got cold outside, cats and dogs would burrow into that roof to keep warm. If it rained real hard, they’d come sliding out.

  A brass monkey is a metal device used on ships during the early years of sailing. It held cannon balls ready for use in case of a naval attack. When it was really cold, freezing moisture would push the balls off, hence the saying.

  A woman whom I did not know turned her chair around and said: “How about this one—did you know that the “ring around the rosie” poem is really a referral to the black plague that hit Europe?”

  (I later looked this plague up. One-third of the population of Europe perished in that plague in and around 1347. It was properly called the bubonic plague, and was carried by rodents with fleas. The fleas then transmitted this plague to humans.)

  ”No. We don’t know that one.” She went on to explain it line by line.

  “Ring around the rosie” refers to the round, red rash that forms on the skin when victims first contract the plague.” We all quit drinking coffee and suddenly the circular sweet rolls in front of us didn’t seem so appetizing.

  She went on: “A pocket full of posies” refers to flowers that everyone carried in the belief that they would ward off the evil spirits that were killing everyone.”

  A young lady approached the table with a tray of what would have otherwise been some really good looking lemon bars. We all held our hands up as if we were warding off the very evil spirits of the plague ourselves.

  As for the flowers, it occurred to me at that point that flowers at weddings way back then in the spring were mainly to cover up the smell of humans who hadn’t bathed all winter. Furthermore, flowers at funerals were there for the same purpose, kind of, to cover up the smell of a body before embalming became popular. Maybe that was what the posies were really for back in 1347—covering up the smell of death. All this in church came to me, but I didn’t bring it up. This lady was doing well enough on her own.

  “Ashes, ashes,” she went on to explain, referred to what was left after the diseased bodies were burned. The source to which I have since referred also speculated that “ashes, ashes” might have referred to the sneezing sound that people with the plague made, so if you got the ring around the rosie, and obviously the pocket full of posies didn’t work, you went “a-choo,a-choo” which later turned into the sound made by the word “ashes.”

  Another possible explanation for this “ashes, ashes” was to the homes which were immediately burnt after the victims expired. Likely they were burned with the homes. Since everyone back then had a thatched roof, this part could have been pretty tricky.

  Another explanation provided was that the term “ashes, ashes” referred to the blackish color of the victim’s skin, which, since this was called the black plague, might make some sense.

  “We all fall down” is almost self explanatory. With one out of three people succumbing to this disease, it must have seemed indeed like they were all falling down.

  And now, the truth: First, no recorded version of this little children’s song popped up until the early nineteenth century. For something to exist that long and not be written down is extremely unlikely. In fact, the first “plague” explanation of this rhyme popped up in the early 1900’s, in a piece of written fiction. A parallel today exists in the book “The da Vinci Code,” which purports to explain all sorts of weird connections between his painting and the bible.

  The more likely explanation, according to research, is that the Protestant ban on dancing in the 19th century was gotten around by adolescents who came up with their “ring” dances, with sing-song rhymes. “Ashes, ashes” is a variation on “husha, husha,” which refers to stopping the ring and becoming silent. The rest is pretty much self explanatory.

  More coffee, anyone?

  §

  English: There’s Absolutely No Getting Around It

  There’s absolutely no getting around it: I’m head over heels in love with, spend some time every day thinking about, couldn’t live without, can hardly believe the depth of feeling I have-- for the English language.

  You thought there was a woman involved, I bet’cha. Or a fast car, maybe red and low to the ground, so low that you could plow the snow off your driveway with it. Ah, rapture plus practicality–a sports car that would plow snow too. Nope.

  You know, there’s one thing about rapture–it’s highly over rated. Rapture is a great word, though, no doubt about it. I’m in love with rapture. And I’m in love with the English language, at least, our American version of it.

  I’ll ride the English language to the end of the line. Right there, that “end of the line” thing, that’s what’s so rapturous about our language. We don’t have to know the explicit words to express our feelings; we just have to know slang phrases and expressions that do it for us. Know where that “end of the line” expression came from? It came from railroading, specifically from the building of the rail lines that connected California to New York City back in the 1880’s.

  Imagine the difficulty of getting steel rail lines from the east coast, where they were manufactured, to California. They had to be sailed all the way down the Atlantic coast, around Cape Horn, which is the southernmost tip of Argentina–way down there at the bottom of South America--, then back
up the west coast again. You think that went smoothly? I’ll bet there were several hundred situations that took the wind right out of their sails, trying to do something like that. (Our rich vocabulary also owes a great deal to our nautical past, which is another completely different set of sayings, ones that talk about wind and sails and water.)

  Then each rail had to be shipped to the end of the line, where ever the end of the line was that day. Do you have any idea how rough things were at the end of the line? They were so rough, you hardly had a Chinaman’s chance in hell of getting there, much less getting rails there. Chinamen, who were looked down upon back then as worth even less than women, didn’t have any chance. And now we have that saying: A Chinaman’s chance in hell. If someone tells you that you don’t have a Chinaman’s chance in hell of doing whatever it is you’re considering doing, you’re about to get the wind knocked right out of your sails.

  We and our language also got another saying from the end of the line: “hell on wheels.”. Hell on wheels was at the end of the rail line. Hell on wheels was the description given to the accumulated collection of gamblers, Faro dealers, prostitutes, and other less savory characters that migrated to where the money was. Follow the money, that was what they did, to the end of the line. Where else did these young male workers have to spend their hard earned dollars? No where, because they were at the end of the line.