These are all "facts" told to me by my American chums........
1. In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase "goodnight, sleep tight".
2. In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's"
3. Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired by this practice.
4. In ancient England a person could not have sex unless you had consent of the King (unless you were in the Royal Family). When anyone wanted to have a baby, they got consent of the King, the King gave them a placard that they hung on their door while they were having sex. The placard had F.*.*.*. (Fornication Under Consent of the King) on it. Now you know where that came from.
5. In Scotland, a new game was invented. It was entitled Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden.... and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.
And if your American and wondering ...... NO none of them are true!
:-)) I'm American, and have learned one or two more things. In Kentucky, we spell it "whiskey" but in Scotland (where the only REAL whisky comes from, the "e" drops out). And in the previous sentence, it would be "learnt" -- not "learned". And I've learnt a few thousand other things from my dear UK friends, not the least of which is: you say to-MAH-to, and we say to-MAY-to. Thanks for the post, Alan...very entertaining!
ReplyDeleteWell the Scots spell it Whisky but the Irish add the 'e' so maybe that's where you guys get it from. Also what we call crisps you call chips and what we call chips you call french fries. Interestingly where we spell words differently (color, favor, gray and lots more) your spellings are the original English spellings and we have changed them over the last 200 years because of outside influences. So you're right and we're wrong!
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