I found this pretty interesting, ymmv :)

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & Sold to the tannery.......if you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor"

But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot......they "didn't have a pot to piss in" & were the lowest of the low

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June.. However, since they were starting to smell . ...... . 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 entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.

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.

Wow you learn something new every day!

This seemed interesting, but then I checked the first term on Google.
In the first result some say that the expression piss-poor is recent and has nothing to do with tanning..

Did you verify all those info? :\
What's the source?

EDIT: probably the text was from an old hoax email titled "Interesting History" or “Facts About the 1500s".

Yes actually that was it, was I rickrolled? :)

You are far too late:

http://www.proz.com/forum/off_topic/163684-where_did_piss_poor_and_other_sayings_come_from.html

dates back to 2010 at leeeeeast ;)

EDIT according to

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/piss-poor

first time usage was 1946

Unfortunately this is almost completely false. Interesting nonetheless

http://www.snopes.com/language/phrases/1500.asp

also wrong - you can find the phrase as far back as medieval texts - although with a medieval spelling of course.

Interesting read, even if it's almost all wrong..! The string & bell graveyard story is quite fascinating!

A lot of vampire, zombie type mythos comes from this type of thing. During the black death graves were stacked high with the dead, some of whom were not actually dead, hence the walking dead. Porphyria is a lack of iron in the blood, and one of the richest sources of iron - blood. Very rarely is something "new" invented, its always a mashup of historical elements, other fantasy etc. mixed in. One that always annoys me is the "Ye Olde" shop, the "Y" is a Thorn, and should be said TH, and trailing "e" shouldn't be pronounced. Not to mentioned complete rubbish like Twilight Saga and such like, or pouty rich twits saga as it should be known.

Nope, see here :P

Btw, it seems that everyone skip posts n2 in threads. O_o

LOL poor old Rick :)

If the "It's raining cats and dogs" origin was as in the op, it would probably be "It's raining cats and rats".

Did you know that the word backlog dates back to the 17th century? As in a large wooden log that you keep at the back of a fire. It has nothing to do with games. It wasn't until 1883 that people started to use the word to describe their huge amounts of unplayed GOG games.

Way, way older.
That was one of the first big-time chain e-mails going around, usually appearing multiple times in your inbox being send from friends who thought it was either funny or interesting. Dates back to at least 1999.
I'm surprised that it still makes the round, considering it was debunked back then.

Some parts are true though actually, like using urine (and feces and animal brains) for tanning leather which was the common way to prepare leather until around the 19th Century and indeed there were "piss pots" on street corners for that exact use.

The bath sharing is true since back then it was pretty hard to get hot water.
Also considering that the traditional japanese still do that, though before they enter the bath they basically take a shower, then go into the bath: Guests have the privilege to go first, than father, son, mother, daughter

Other stuff just simply makes no sense at all. The "Yearly Bath" is a myth that is played out in a lot of medival and western movies but just not true at all. Could you imagine not bathing or washing yourself for one full year?
And then to think that a bunch of flowers would help against the smell of a woman not washing herself for one month is just plain silly.

The bread dividing also makes no sense, it would make more sense that the higher ranking family members get the middle parts while children get the edges with all the crust that so many people don't like but even that would sound like bullshit.

From what i know the "It's raining cats and dogs" quote comes from the book "A Complete Collection of genteel and ingenious Conversation, according to the most polite mode and method now used at Court, and in the best Companies of England" from Jonathan Swift released in 1738.

Can´t say, didn´t receive it ;)

they were far more environmental friendly in those days.

Actually not so hard, but just too expensive. As you were only able to use wood for it and all the forests (and the wood) belonged to the higher people (Church and/or Aristocrats). Even the game in the forests did belong to them.

So and so. It actually depended quite a bit on where you lived. OK people living near rivers did wash themselves more often, but city?? Why do you think even the Romans invented the public baths? And just thinking of it, they had more hygiene than the middle ages....bloody church again ;)

And from France (before the revolution) it is noted that the Upper class did NOT take frequently a bath! Hence the false hairs, powder, perfume and similar.

The bottom could make sense. Did you ever eat bread from a real stone oven? The bottom might be blackened from ash and a bit burned. But the rest is more up for dislike or like. I prefer a nice crust, not the soft inside ;)

Of course it could make sense, that is the point of these, to sound plausible if you do not think about it too much, but is that how you slice your bread? I think not.