Q: Where did we get the expression "to paint the town red"?
A: One imaginative word tracer links it to ancient Rome, where students
supposedly thought it high sport to get drunk in packs and douse marble
statues with red wine. Maybe so. Maybe not.
- Franciscan monks in the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin wear cloaks with hoods
that fall in a V over their foreheads. That's where the organ grinder monkey
got its name Capuchin. Its hair falls over its forehead in a V like that.
- If you want to serve an appetizer such as the old Romans served, try a tray of
radishes with honey for the dip.
- I am afraid that I do not have my documentation but suffice it to say that our major
three swear words in the English language are old SAXON. There are many folk that'll
tell you the "F" word meant For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge or Fornication Under Consent
of the King. NOT TRUE! It was a Saxon word pure and simple and ridiculed thusly at
the Court of the First King William.
- One of my favorites is "Zounds!" [God's Wounds, corrupted to 'swounds, evolved to
zounds... which was more often than not pronounced to rhyme with "sounds," thus further
obscuring its derivation]. Interesting, I think, that period "cursing" was really tied
in with blasphemy, unlike the "four letter words" constituting modern "swear words."
The penalty for cursing in Cromwell's army, by the by, was having one's tongue bored
through with a red-hot iron. Doubtlessly more effective than the ol' washing out with
soap method.
- Wow! Did you know that Gadzooks is a period swear word?
Can't tell if you are being sarky or not -hehe but it stands for
"God's Bloody Hooks" - I.E. The late J.C. and the crucifixion.
Q: Why do grooms have best men?
A: According to German folklore, around A.D. 200, if a Germanic Goth couldn't find a wife
from within his community, he would go off to a neighboring town and abduct a woman.
Often, he would encounter resistance from the woman's family, so the would-be groom took
along a good friend. The friend's job was to counter resistance and stand guard during
the wedding. This cohort became known as the best man.
While this story is folklore, it does have supporting evidence. For example, many older
churches, including the Goths', had weapons underneath their altars, presumably to
protect against retaliation from the bride's family.
- Mayan civilization lasted six times as long as the renowned Roman Empire.
- Merchant seamen shut down work aboard ships by "striking" their sails --
lowering them -- and that's where labor's word "strike" came from.
- The poor begged for alms. Lacking same, St. Doris of Lucca in 618 passed out
violets. The poor stoned her.
Q: Which came first, the hotdog or the mustard?
A: Call it a dead heat. Sausage in a bun and prepared mustard each first
showed up at the 1904 St. Louis Exposition. But those early comestibles,
sausage and mustard seed, go back a whole lot further. As you might expect, to China.
- What we now call a bedroom was known as a chamber a couple of centuries ago. A
bedroom then was a little room off the kitchen with nothing in it but a cot.
- "Slogan" started out as another name for a battle cry. Or a call to assemble.
Scottish highlanders used the word that way. So did some Irish clansmen.
- Numerous irregular points of land jut out into the water around Scandinavia.
The Norse of old called them "oddi." That's where we got the word "odd."
- On July 5, 1054 A.D., the sky lit up most stunningly, and stayed that way,
light enough to read at night, for about three months. A supernova had
exploded. Historians say all the world's faiths in those few weeks picked up converts.
- Greeks came up with the first textbooks. Credit Dionysius Thrax for grammar.
Credit Euclid for geometry. Blame Diophantus for algebra.
- Chinese chopsticks are blunt, Japanese chopsticks pointed.
- "Bells and motley" -- no, not a law firm -- is the traditional costume of the court jester.
- The letter "X" began as a picture of a fish.
Q: What color lipstick did the women of ancient Egypt wear?
A: Blue black. Around 6000 B.C.
- The "yard" wasn't standardized at 36 inches until 1830. It varied greatly for
centuries. For good reason. It started out as the girth of a Saxon.
- The British do not have much of a reputation for culinary masterpieces, but
give them this -- they did come up with the Western world's most popular
prepared comestible, the sandwich.
Q: Where were headquarters of Attila the Hun?
A: In what's now Hungary. He and his brother Bleda jointly inherited the
Hunnish Kingdom. And historians say it was clear where Attila was going when
he murdered Bleda to get full control.
- Ink is older than paper.
- You don't hear much about the great French surgeon Ambroise Pare. He was doing
his best work about the time William Shakespeare was born. It was he who
taught doctors to seal wounds by sewing them up instead of burning them with hot irons.
- The second day can be significant: Soup, stew and hash taste better then. And
sprains, strains and sunburn hurt more.
- Gold toothpicks go back at least to 3500 B.C. Such have been found in little
gold boxes deep in the Mesopotamian ruins.
- Item No. 1177C in our Love and War man's file, labeled "Multiple Marriage," is
this Scottish proverb: "Never marry a widow unless her first husband was hanged."
Q: Where'd the name "Iraq" come from?
A: An Arabic word meaning "origin."
- "Kissing" in ancient Rome was of three kinds: "basium" between acquaintances,
"osculum" between close friends, and "suavium" between lovers. If your old Latin
professor didn't explain the differences in detail, perhaps you learned them elsewhere.
- Leonardo da Vinci drew countless hands.
Q: Why is Bermuda called that?
A: Because it was first reported back to Europe in the early 1500s by the
adventurous Spaniard named Juan de Bermudez.
- Am told Arabic has 350 words for sword.
- "Burg" meant city. "Lar" meant thief. So "burglar" meant "city thief."
Q: What ended the age of knights in shining armor? Rust?
A: Arrows from Welsh longbows. They could pierce armor at 400 yards.
- Did I mention the owl in certain Asian countries is the traditional image of stupidity?
- According to some historians, it was the women of ancient Egypt who were the sexual aggressors.
Q: Whatever happened to the French adventurer Etienne Brule who came to North
America in 1608 with Samuel de Champlain?
A: The Hurons ate him. That, according to several accounts.
- The war chariot of ancient Rome needed a three-man crew. Two up front, a rein
handler and a shooter. Behind them, a strap hanger to keep them from bouncing
out of the vehicle as it rolled over the bodies.
- You know that hand game where you and your opponent mix and match the number
of extended fingers? Sioux Indians played it before the Europeans showed up.
Old Romans played it. Ancient Egyptians played it.
Q: How did the game of golf actually get started?
A: Theorists think shepherds batted wool balls around the grazing grounds with crooks.
Theorists, it's clear, are those who don't really know.
- In Armenian, no word can start with an "R."
- A man now remembered only as Heydon started a fasting cult three centuries ago
in England. He convinced his followers they'd get sufficient nourishment if they
merely inhaled the aroma of cooked food without ever eating any. The cult died out.
Q: What have we got against eating horse meat, anyway?
A: Nothing more than an ancient attitude. Pope Gregory III in A.D. 732 banned
horseflesh from Christian tables after he learned that pagans of northern
Europe at it in their religious rites. His papal decree stuck.
- The Pharaoh Ramses was called Ramses the Great in part because he was so tall
for his time -- 5-foot-8.
- That word "toadstool" did not start out as a "stool for toads." The "stool"
therein comes from the German "stuhl," meaning the same. But the "toad" comes
from the German "tod" meaning "death."
Q: Why is a wedding ring worn on the ring finger?
A: The Western practice of wearing a wedding ring on the third
finger (not including the thumb) began in Greece in the
third century B.C. The Greeks believed that there was a
vein, named the "vein of love," that ran from what we now
call the ring finger directly to the heart. As a result,
they placed the ring that symbolized love on that finger.
Later, the Romans, adopting Greek science, copied the
custom and took it one step further. Roman physicians used
their ring fingers to stir medicine, believing that since
the ring finger was connected to the heart, it could detect toxicity.
Q: Why are three golden balls the symbol of a pawnshop?
A: The three golden balls were originally the symbol of the Medici family of Florence.
Legend has it that Averardo de Medici once slew the giant warrior Mugello, whose mace
were three gilded balls. After the victory, three golden balls became the Medici family symbol.
When the family ran pawnshops in Florence, Italy, it displayed its symbol over the
shops' entrances. Eventually, the three gilded balls came to represent Medici owned
pawnshops in people's minds, and later, it became associated with all pawnshops.
In addition, another legend point to the Saint Nicholas of Myra, Patron
Saint of Pawnbrokers, whose three bags of gold saved three maidens from
being sold into prostitution (the father did not have enough money for
their dowries). So, money became available when it was most needed
(much like a pawn broker furnishes funds to those unfortunate enough to
need to sell their belongings).
Q: Where was the first horse race of record?
A: Olympic Games, 642 B.C. First prize was a "woman of well-rounded domestic skills."
- Bonsai originated in China.
- Trace back the liquids used to christen ships: Now it's champagne. Yesteryear
it was red wine. Earlier, animal blood was the christener, a sacrifice to the
gods. But earliest, only human blood so stained those ships.
Q: The Moors long lived in North Africa. Their identity is still recognized in
the names of which two countries?
A: Morocco and Mauritania.
- Day lilies are edible. So are roses. And tulips. And salvia, too, naturally --
it's sage. Did I mention there are people who bake dandelions into biscuits?
- First toothbrushes with hog bristles showed up in China in 1498. Six years
after that best-remembered date, 1492, when Columbus sailed for elsewhere. The
Chinese later experimented with brushes of horse hair and badger fur. But the
hog-bristle version remained the best for 440 years. Until nylon.
- In 1711, King George I looked upon the newly completed St. Paul's Cathedral in
London and turned to the architect, Christopher Wren, and murmured, "Aweful!
Artificial!" So it's recorded in the historical footnotes. Language scholars
point out that in the 18th century "aweful" meant "awe-inspiring" and
"artificial" mean "filled with art."
- Which did Egypt get first, pyramids or beer? Say beer. In 1989, the remains of
a 5,400-year-old brewery were found near the Nile. Egypt's first known pyramid
was built about 2650 B.C.
- Chinese physicians 2,000 years ago told patients with goiter problems to eat
seaweed. Rich in iodine, that seaweed. Today's medical doctors couldn't have
prescribed more appropriately.
- Of Limburger cheese, William Shakespeare wrote: "The rankest compound of
villainous smell that ever offended nostril." You can see Limburger has been
around for a few centuries. But why is not explained.
- Odd, isn't it, that almost everybody has heard of the Spice Islands, yet
hardly anybody knows their whereabouts. Now called the Moluccas, they're in
eastern Indonesia between Celebes and New Guinea. The dutch once controlled
them to dominate the spice trade.
- The first cooks in Europe to figure out what to do with tomatoes were the Italians.
And none too long ago -- not even a couple of hundred years, give ortake a few.
Q: Didn't Queen Elizabeth I invent the gingerbread man?
A: So say some historians. What's certain is ginger was the favorite spice in
her day. The Queen's good cooks, like many good cooks, don't always get the credit.
- Spanish proverb: "Wine has two defects -- if you add water, you ruin it; if
you do not add water, it ruins you."
- Why mistletoe tends to grow on apple trees more than on other trees is still not fully explained.
Q: Why did people at first think tomatoes were poisonous?
A: Earlier they threw away the beet and ate the leaves. That worked. But
when they threw away the tomato and ate the foliage, they got sick, so assumed...
Q: Where do most of the Mayan descendants live now?
A: Largest group, Bolivia. Second largest, Guatemala.
- The law in ancient Rome required prostitutes to wear yellow hair, and that one bit of
legal lunacy ruined the reputations of blondes worldwide for many generations.
- What made the Vikings such a power back in their time, I've read, was their
invention of the keel. It let them sail the open sea.
- Credit those Spanish explorers, too, with bringing over the game of billiards.
First to St. Augustine, Fla., in 1565.
- Not all realize the dachshund is one of the oldest breeds of dog in history.
Even the ancient Egyptians raised such. But they called it something else.
They called everything something else.
Q: Ancient Rome allowed two types of marriage -- "with manu" and "without manu."
What was the difference?
A: "With manu" -- the wife belonged to her husband, and he could hurt her,
sell her, or kill her. "Without manu" -- the wife served her husband but
belonged to her father, who could repossess her, but she could inherit from him.
- Napoleon was a bit compulsive about white horses. He owned at least 50. The
"hero on the white horse" was a cliche of drama then, too. And earlier. Even
back to armored knights.
- In early falconry, a man no longer young enough to fly his own bird wound up
toting the wooden frame on which live hawks were carried. It was called a
"cadge," pronounced "codge." Some but not all word tracers say that's the very
first use of "old codger."
- Mars looks red, so early Mediterranean folk saw that planet as bloody and
identified it as a god of war. Whimsies about Mars have been stretched to
suggest matters both "murderous" and "masculine." That rosy iron oxide has
certainly led to a lot of inane mythology, antique and modern.
- In what's now northern Iran are ancient drawings on stone that indicate women
around 200 B.C. milked elk.
- The great Greek named Solon achieved fame by prescribing landmark laws for
ancient Athens. He also decreed that a public brothel must be run by the
locals, with one price for all patrons.
Q: How long has the unrecommended word "ain't" been in use?
A: About 300 years. Back to the reign of King Charles II.
- Almost but not quite all the important cities in Europe were founded around monasteries.
- Socrates knew nothing of Confucius. Confucius knew nothing of Socrates. Their
lifetimes overlapped.
- China recently announced that peddlers living during the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD)
were the creators of advertising. The first ads were in the form of songs sung to
passersby, according to the Associated Press.
This sounds GREAT!!!! As a merchant always looking for a better angle, I
am now looking for Bards that are willing to sing at Steppes Warlord.
Compensation negotiable, bartering will get you the best deal--- meals,
transportation, wares from my booth..............
Lady Daungerous dhe Ruadh
Desert Dancer Imports
Now you did it Darious. merchants are going to start asking us bards to sing about
thier wares...An now a song from our spocers...Oh boy what this tidbit could start.
Lady Simone
Q: Which came first, beer or bread?
A: Beer, probably. The oldest known recipe is for beer.
- Wheel, lever, wedge -- these always show up on lists of the significant early
inventions. But rope rarely does. Why not? It enabled the ancients to snare
fish and fowl. It may not have been as important as control of fire, but rope
added greatly to what people ate.
- "Herders hate hunters and farmers. Hunters hate farmers and
herders. Farmers hate herders and hunters. That has been the pattern among
humans as far back as scholars can trace. Stupid, isn't it?"
Q: How far back do mules go?
A: Too far to know. Biblical scholars say Solomon's coronation chariot was pulled by a mule.
- Among the medieval aristocracy, many saw it as a point of pride to declare
they had never had to take a bath. They who didn't do dirty work didn't need
to clean themselves, they felt. The full body wash was only appropriate for
stable shovelers and their ilk.
- Historians claim to know that Hannibal, even while he crossed the Alps, wore his wig.
Q: The goddess of love in Greek mythology was Aphrodite. She was sculpted in
the second century B.C. What were the measurements of that statue?
A: At 5 feet 2 inches, it taped 35-1/2 inches at the bust, 27-1/2 inches at
the waist, and 36-1/2 inches at the hips.
- In the Western Hemisphere where chilies grew, natives liked to eat them. Then
Spanish priests ominously warned that they were sex stimulants. Thereafter,
natives loved to eat them, and vice versa. Your assignment: List edibles that
became popular when street talkers labeled them aphrodisiacs. You can start
with tomatoes, potatoes and oysters.
- A Chinese imperial decree -- about 1116 B.C. Western time -- averred it was a
requirement of the heavenly powers that people regularly take a moderate
amount of alcoholic drink.
- Early Spanish soldiers in the Western Hemisphere asked where they could find
gold. Cuna natives replied "panna mai" meaning "far away." The soldiers didn't
get the message, so stayed. And panna mai turned into the name of a nation.
This is among the several origin reports in conflict over the name "Panama."
- In Chaucer's Middle English, the "bumble" in bumblebee had much to do with
"humming" and nothing to do with "bumbling" as we so well know it.
- Penalty for stealing a Pekinese in old China was death.
Q: Where'd we get the line "It's Greek to me"?
A: From "Julius Caesar" by Mr. Shakespeare.
- That horse known as the paint goes way back. It was even depicted in Egyptians
tombs around 3400 B.C.
- Lettuce used to be considered a weed.
- In what regard the Turkmen of Turkmenistan hold their wives, I do not know.
But a clue is offered in their favored adage: "When you first wake up, greet
first your father and then your horse."
- It's a matter of ecclesiastical record that St. Bernard of Clairvaux once
excommunicated the flies in a monastery.
- People of Morocco traditionally have regarded the stork as sacred. They even
built a stork hospital. It's still a hospital. But not for storks.
Q: How did ancient Egyptians make paper out of papyrus?
A: Papyrus is a tall marsha plant otherwise known as sedge. Egyptians cut the
stems in strips, soaked them, overlaid them while wet, pounded them flat, and
left them in the sun to dry. You or I could do the same.
- It was a Portuguese who got to what's now Los Angeles before any other
European. Juan Rodriguez, he. A navigator. He looked around and left.
- Superheated glass flows like honey. And what can you mold out of honey?
Nothing. Art of glassblower is not in the heating, but in the cooling.
Q: Were does the phrase "give the cold shoulder" come from?
A: "Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days."
--Benjamin Franklin
How do you get rid of a guest who's overstayed his welcome?
In Europe, during the Middle Ages, such a guest would be served a cooked but cold beef
shoulder. After a few meals of this, even the most obnoxious guest would get the
message and leave.
As a result, the phrase, "give the cold shoulder" came to
refer to any intentional coldness.
- Builders of houses in old China traditionally put the roof up first. Or almost first.
- What Marco Polo brought back from China in 1295 A.D. -- if he actually went
there himself, which some scholars now doubt -- was a sort of sherbet. It
wasn't until more than four centuries later that milk was added to make ice cream.
- There were those in ancient Greece who held a track meet as a funeral
ceremony. In the fifth century B.C., that. Particularly, soldiers killed in
war were so commemorated. With races mostly, some wrestling matches, too.
Q: What does "Barbados" mean?
A: "The Beards." Fig trees there appeared to be bearded. To the Portuguese
sailors who named the island.
- Romania once was Dacia.
- All know many early American Indians used particularly colorful shells for
wampum. Some know a few early American Indians taught whites how to
counterfeit wampum by staining plain white shells with vegetable dyes. Crime,
too, comes with the territory.
Q: Settle an argument. Who talked more in Shakespeare's plays, Hamlet or Falstaff?
A: Hamlet in one play, Falstaff in several combined.
- Kettle equals pot, does it not? A muzzle-loading rifleman went out there
gunning to put meat in the family kettle. And got close enough so he couldn't
miss. That's where we got the word "potshot."
- That renowned Fleur-de-Lis of France is actually a German iris, I'm told.
Q: Where'd we get the goodbye term "so long"?
A: From British soldiers. Who got it from Malays who say "salong." Who
borrowed it from the Middle Easterners who say "salaam."
- Spanish proverb: "He who wants to grow rich in a year will be hanged in a month."
- It's reported in a nature magazine some Southwest Indians long ago used
sunflowers to treat rattlesnake bites. But they all died out.
Q: Who was the only monarch of France to remain faithful to his wife?
A: King Louis XVI has been so identified. It's said he took some quiet pride
in the wholesome fact right up until he was beheaded on Jan. 21, 1792.
- Not only did the old witch burners of Europe burn many a witch, they usually
forced the alleged witches' families to pay for the firewood.
- Am told a traditional Chinese painting has two intriguing features: the open
corner, which allows the viewer's eye to enter the painting, and an area left
unfinished, which lets observers complete the picture in their own imaginations.
Q: What were the first dice made of?
A: Animal knucklebones.
- Just because it looks like a horse doesn't mean it's a horse. If it's not at
least 4 feet, 10 inches high at the withers -- that's shoulders, cityfolk
--it's not a horse but a pony.
- Bread baked in big round loaves stays fresh a lot longer than bread baked in long thin
loaves. French peasants centuries ago learned that fact, reconfirmed today by tests.
Q: Why are black cats considered unlucky?
A: For centuries, not only weren't cats feared, but they were actually revered. Egyptians
(who domesticated cats around 3000 B.C.) enacted laws protecting the felines from injury
and death. Confucius kept a pet cat in 500 B.C. And the Japanese kept cats as protectors
of their sacred manuscripts in A.D. 600.
But reverence turned to hatred in Europe during the Middle Ages. Parts of the continent
suddenly found themselves overrun with cats, which were often fed by poor, old ladies.
When the witch hysteria took over Europe, many of these old ladies were accused of black
magic and their cats were implicated by association. Black cats were especially hated by
Europeans, who associated the color black with evil.
A popular, though apocryphal, story illustrates the thinking of the day. According to
the story, a father and son were walking on a dark road in England one evening when a
black cat crossed their path. Scared, they threw stones at the cat and watched it limp
towards the home of a suspected witch. The next day, they saw the old lady walk through
town with a bruised face and bandaged arm. From then on, all misfortunes suffered by
the father and son were attributed to the witch.
Q: What's the origin of the coin toss?
A: Ever notice how handy a coin can be in making a tough decision. Have a dispute with a
friend over who should get his way? Well just toss a coin in the air and when it comes
down you'll have your answer. Heads you win, tails he loses (or something like that).
Today we generally use a coin toss to decide trivial matters, but it originated as a way
of making major decisions. Centuries ago, before the Magic 8 Ball, the Ouija board, and
advice columnists, people used to believe that important decisions should be left up to
the gods. To get the gods' opinions, they devised all sorts of clever methods.
One of these methods was the coin toss. The idea behind the toss is that after you throw
the coin in the air, the gods will make sure that the proper side lands upright.
- Some writers contend "no word ever has the exact same meaning twice." Maybe
so. But "hogwash," I think, still means exactly what it meant the last time
this subject came up.
- What tires a schoolteacher most? Juvenal, the Roman poet, wrote: "Repetition,
like cabbage served at every meal, wears out the schoolmaster's life."
- "Harass" comes from the German through French words meaning "to set a dog on,"
according to our Language man.
Q: Has anybody ever routinely ridden moose?
A: Swedes and Russians some. And milked them. And pulled sleds with them. In
northern Europe, they're called elk. They aren't as manageable as reindeer.
They can get weird.
- The gladiolus started out in northern Africa, and historically there the
short, thick, solid, underground stem called the corm, wherein lie all the
nutrients, has been roasted and eaten.
- That color of red called magenta was named after a town in Italy, site of a
battle where much blood flowed.
- Chinese proverb: "Even as a hollow building echoes all sounds, so is a vacant
mind open to all suggestions."
- Surgeons relied on speed before anesthesia, and among the speediest was Dr.
Robert Liston of London. In one operation, it's recorded, he: 1. Sliced the
fingers of an assistant, who subsequently died from infection. 2. Slashed the
coat of a colleague, who so panicked he died of a heart attack. 3. Sewed up
the wound of the patient, declaring success, only to note the unfortunate
shortly died of gangrene. One surgical session, three down.
- That skullcap worn by popes, cardinals and bishops is called a "zucchetto,"
and the prescribed colors for these notables are white, red and purple, respectively.
- That word "garlic" came down from the Anglo-Saxon "gar" for "spear" and "lead" for "leek."
- A 17th-century Swedish scholar who specialized in classical language studies
wrote of his conviction that in the Garden of Eden God spoke Swedish, Adam
spoke Danish and the serpent spoke French.
- Report out of Germany's Saxony is that approximately 50 classic medieval
castles are for sale thereabouts. At $1 million and up, up, up.
Q: Why should something suspect be taken "with a grain of salt"?
A: Throughout history, salt has been revered for its preservation and purification properties.
Jewish dietary law, for example, requires that meat be properly salted before it's eaten.
Similarly, many people used to believe that salt could prevent poisoning.
Our expression, "with a grain of salt" comes from a poison antidote and preventative
concocted by King Mithridates VI of Pontus (now in Turkey). The king's formula was
"two dry nuts, the same number of figs, and twenty leaves of rue ground together, with a
grain of salt added." Mithridates's all-purpose antidote was proven ineffective, but his
use of "a grain of salt" stuck.
Q: Why do people kiss under the mistletoe?
A: The custom of kissing under the mistletoe originates in Norse mythology. According to
the Scandinavians, the handsome and gracious god Balder had a premonition about his
murder. To prevent the death, Frigg, his mother, made every living thing promise not to
kill her son. Her only omission was the insignificant mistletoe. Loki, the evil god,
discovered Frigg's oversight, and sought to exploit it. Appearing as an uninvited guest
at a banquet in Valhalla, Loki watched as the other gods shot arrows at Balder for fun,
marveling at how none of the arrows pierced the seemingly invulnerable god. Loki, always
seeking to harm, also shot an arrow at Balder, but his arrow was made of mistletoe, so
it killed him. Though clearly innocent by modern standards, the other gods were angry
at the mistletoe for killing their favorite god. As retribution, they allowed Frigg to
do what she wanted to the plant. Rather than hurt it, Frigg, the goddess of love, decided
to make the mistletoe a symbol of affection, asking that anyone standing under it be
given a kiss of love and forgiveness.
Q: Why are there so many weddings in June?
A: June gets its name from Juno, the Roman goddess of marriage. Juno was said to take extra
care of marriages that took place in her month, making hers an auspicious month for weddings.
As an old Roman proverb said, "Prosperity to the man and happiness to the maid when married
in June." Adding to June's popularity is the fact that the previous month, May, is named
for Maia, the patroness of old people. "Marry in May, and rue the day," warned the old couplet.
To avoid the month that many considered unlucky, many couples postponed their nuptials till June.
Q: Why do we shake hands?
A: This question's exact answer is probably lost to antiquity, but folklore offers a
speculative explanation of the custom. In ancient times, when people routinely carried
daggers, two men who wanted to reassure each other of their benevolent intentions would
extended their right hands-- their weapon hands--to show that they weren't wielding daggers.
For extra protection, they would then hold each other's right hand until each was sure
that he was dealing with a friend. Women, who rarely carried weapons, didn't need to go
through this routine, which explains why they didn't develop the custom until recently.
Q: Did Nero fiddle while Rome burned?
A: Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar couldn't have fiddled while Rome burned in A.D. 64 because
the fiddle, or violin, wasn't invented until the 1500s. What Nero really did while Rome
burned is sing. The emperor, who had artistic ambitions, was apparently performing an old
Greek scene for his friends. The first reference to Nero's fiddling appeared in the mid-1600s.
The word "fiddle" seems to have been used to mean "engaging in frivolous activity," not
"playing a violin." When he was through singing, Nero blamed the fire on the Christians
and began the first Roman persecution. Others, pointing to Nero's desire to rebuild Rome
on a grand scale, note that the fire was a very convenient way for him to carry out his
plans and suggest that he may have caused the fire himself.
Q: Why do we say "God bless you" after someone sneezes?
A: Until Hippocrates set them straight, people believed that a sneeze could cause the soul
to leave its body, a belief supported by the fact that sick people often sneezed before
dying. To help protect the sneezer from losing his soul, anyone hearing a loved one
sneeze would immediately wish him good luck. In the fourth century BC, Hippocrates, the
"father of medicine," explained that sneezing was usually no more than the body's efforts
to clear the nostrils of foreign, offensive matter. Taking Hippocrates's discovery one
step further, the Romans actually congratulated sneezers because they were cleaning their
bodies. In the sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great reversed course and gave us the
custom that survives to this day. During the Roman plague, Pope Gregory made the same
connection between sneezing and death that people made before Hippocrates, so he ordered
anyone hearing a sneeze to support the sneezer by saying "God bless you!"
Q: Why did pirates wear earrings?
A: It's believed that pirates, like other sailors, wore earrings to improve their eyesight.
While the idea that piercing an ear will improve one's vision might seem like an old
wives' tale, acupuncture supports the practice. In acupuncture, thin needles are sometimes
inserted into the earlobe to correct vision problems. It seems that pirates began piercing
their ears after traveling through the oriental trade routes in the eighteenth century.
The acupuncture connection is further supported by the lack of earrings in the pre-eighteenth
century depictions of pirates.
Actually my experience and research into Naval and "Pirate" (I have been
involved with living history organizations for the past 11 years incorporating
mimimally 16th through 19th century periods of Naval and seafaring history and
reinactment plus am a bachelors degree candidate in history with a contextual
in education with emphasis on the ancient world and colonial histories)
history tells me that current and past custom of piercing ones ears and
wearing earrings had primarily to do with crossing the equator or other lines
of demarkation such as the Artic Circle.
Now today sailors get scrolls denoting this ( I used to calligraph them in the
80's for both the Forrestal and the Saratoga).
I believe this was why first one ear was done then the other when passing
these points on the globe.
And then additionally they had the value of the earring to fall back on if need be.
~THL Kara Hawkwood, CMC, CSTT
(from one of Trimaris and Meridies original privateering families!)
- Christmas Trivia:
THE STOCKING:
Dutch children stuffed wooden shoes with straw for St.
Nicholas' donkey. According to tradition, after feeding the
straw to his donkey, Nicholas thanked the children by
putting a treat in each shoe. Americans replaced the shoe
with stocking (which could hold more goodies).
XMASS:
Christmas is often abbreviated to "Xmas" because X is the
first letter in the Greek word for Christ, "Xristos."
THE IMAGE:
The real St. Nicholas was tall and thin, and that's the way people remembered him for
centuries, but Thomas Nast, a nineteenth-century cartoonist changed that image. His
drawings from 1863 to 1886 depicted St. Nick as the jolly, plump man familiar to us today.
Q: Who was Santa Claus?
A: Santa Claus is based on Saint Nicholas, the bishop of Myra. Born in fourth century Turkey,
Nicholas had a reputation for generosity towards the poor and an impressive ability to
win converts to the church. His reputation for Christian activities infuriated the Romans,
who imprisoned and tortured Nicholas and didn't release him until Constantine-- who later
converted to Christianity--became emperor. St. Nicholas' legendary generosity, especially
toward children, helped make him the man we now call Santa Claus. Early legends surrounding
St. Nick had him deliver goodies to children while dressed in his bishop's robes. Pulled
by a donkey--the reindeer weren't introduced till later--the saint's gifts included fruits
and nuts. Though he was banished from most European countries during the Protestant Reformation
of the sixteenth century, the Dutch kept the spirit of St. Nicholas--or "Sint Nikolass" as
they called him--alive. They even brought him to the New World with them, where his Dutch
name became "Sinterklass." When the Dutch lost New Amsterdam to the English, Sinterklass
was Americanized to "Santa Clause," the name that lives on today.
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