Some Email Jokes Jef got in 2006
Aug 9, from Joanne T also rcvd in late 1990sMIDIEVAL FACTSHere are some facts about the 1500s.....
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June (a June wedding). However, they were starting to smell, so 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. 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 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 entranceway. Hence the saying a thresh hold.
(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)
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 whisky. 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 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.
Aug 5, from Ruth also rcvd in late 1990sMURPHY'S OTHER LAWS
- Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
- A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.
- He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
- A day without sunshine is like, well, night.
- Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
- Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.
- Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.
- The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.
- It is said that if you line up all the cars in the world end-to-end, someone would be stupid enough to try to pass them.
- If the shoe fits, get another one just like it.
- The things that come to those that wait may be the things left by those who got there first.
- Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will sit in a boat all day drinking beer.
- Flashlight: A case for holding dead batteries.
- The shin bone is a device for finding furniture.
- When you go into court, you are putting yourself in the hands of 12 people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.
June 22, from Mark RFIRE FIGHTING REWARDOne night outside a small town, a fire started inside the local chemical plant. In the blink of an eye, it exploded into massive flames.
The alarm went out to all fire departments for miles around. When the volunteer fire fighters appeared on the scene, the chemical company president rushed to the fire chief and said, "All our secret formulas are in the vault in the center of the plant. They must be saved. I'll give $50,000 to the fire department that brings them out intact."
But the roaring flames held the firefighters off. Soon more fire departments had to be called in as the situation became desperate.
As the firemen arrived, the president shouted out that the offer was now $100,000 to the fire department who could save the company's secret files.
From the distance, a lone siren was heard as another fire truck came into sight. It was the nearby Chasidic Jewish rural township volunteer fire company composed mainly of Jewish, ultra-orthodox men over the age of 65. To everyone's amazement, that little broken-down fire engine roared right past all the sleek newer engines that were parked outside the plant.
Without even slowing down, it drove straight into the middle of the inferno. Outside, the other firemen watched as the Chasidic old timers jumped off right in the middle of the fire and fought it back on all sides.
It was a performance and effort never seen before.
Within a short time, the Chasidic old timers had extinguished the fire and saved the secret formulas.
The grateful chemical company president announced that for such a superhuman feat he was upping the reward to $200,000, and walked over to thank each of the brave fire fighters personally.
The local TV news reporter rushed in to capture the event on film, asking their chief, "What are you going to do with all that money?"
"Vell," said Moishe Goldberg, the 70-year-old fire chief, "Da foist ting ve gonna do is fix da brakes on dat focking truck!"
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