Every once in a while, mails such as the following erupt and circulate widely, spreading disinformation and canards throughout the world. Many people blindly forward it to their friends; some use it in pub quizzes and claim it's all true; very few are bothered to verify. I am as contrary as a trucker, and so here are my findings, debunking this lot of puerility. (But since my sources are on the Internet as well, you might well want to disbelieve me too.)
In the 1400's a law was set forth in England that a man was allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. Hence we have 'the rule of thumb'.Tosh. There was no such law. It is likelier that the expression (which appears first in the 1700s) stems from the observation that the length of the top joint of a man's thumb is about an inch long. No scale? Use your thumb as a rule.
Many years ago in Scotland , a new game was invented. It was ruled 'Gentlemen Only...Ladies Forbidden'....and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.Arrant nonsense.
Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the U.S. Treasury.I'm not sure if this is true or not. There's an article by Martin Loughlin that makes this claim, but offers no evidence. So I shall hold fire at this moment.Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.There are some sex-based differences among humans, it's true, but the variation is so large that you could almost always find a counter-example to claims such as these. The Language Log, as fine a source of solid information as one can hope to find, there's a good analysis of gender differences. Go and read it and the next time you hear that women use 20,000 words while men only grunt, kick whoever said it in the shins.Coca-Cola was originally green.Distilled crap, this. The colour of Coke has always been rich brown. It's been bottled in green bottles, but surely that's not a good reason to make this claim?It is impossible to lick your elbow.Take a look at this.
5 comments:
Whilst writing my book about pub history I discovered that “Mind your Ps and Qs” might also be another kind of warning. When landlords chalked pints and quarts up “on the slate” they weren’t averse to adding a few extra marks. It’s therefore a warning to customers to watch the bill.
Instead of chalking up on the slate, London Market porters had their drinks marked on a strip of leather or tab, hence “running a tab”. It’s also said to give us the expression “strapped for cash”
Elaine Saunders
Author: A Book About Pub Names
It’s A Book About….blog
Oh nice read, Fëanor, more than two bits for sure. Thoroughly enjoyed it !
Elaine's addition here is interesting too. Bravo.
Elaine: I didn't know that about the 'tab'. Good stuff, thanks!
Dutchie: There's a lot of nonsense that's constantly forwarded around the Internet, and this is my small fight-back, heheh. Thanks for stopping by!
Elaine: since you are a pub maven, you probably already know the various facts I documented in this blog about them. I'd love your feedback:
http://jostamon.blogspot.com/search/label/pubs
As you can imagine, any fact connected with pubs has to originate in a tall story somewhere along the line.
Whilst researching, I came across so much information that had been parrotted from one blog post to the next. Often it was impossible to separate fact from fiction so I included every interpretation into each entry in the book.
I also cover drinking expressions and also doubt the origin of the Wet Your Whistle idea. At the time, manufacturers had difficulty producing a drinking vessel with a flat botton (hence a tumbler because they kept tumbling over). I therefore think it unlikely that they could have made something as complex as a mug with a whistle in the rim.
However, who knows? Hopefully it will provide more fuel for bar-room debate!
Elaine Saunders
Author – A Book About Pub Names
It’s A Book About….blog
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