featherynscale (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
featherynscale) wrote2005-11-22 07:46 am
featherynscale) wrote2005-11-22 07:46 am
Entry tags:
LJ Balderdash, Round One -- Choose your Destiny
The answers are in (only nine, but that's a lot like ten). Vote for your favorite by commenting with its number. You may not vote for your own answer.
(These are not in poll form because they are too effing long. Also, I cut any references cited.)
1. The phrase "getting one's ashes hauled" is actually derived from the phrase "getting one's asses hauled"-- a spelling error that was then perpetuated by the puritanical movement to clean up the rough language of the frontier.
In the 1800s land rush of the American West, inns and saloons on the major trails were often very busy with weary travellers stopping for a rest, all their earthly possessions packed onto horses, mules, and donkeys outside. The hitching posts would fill up quickly in the afternoons, as people stopped for the night in these "rush towns" along the Santa Fe and Oregon trails. If the hitching post was full, many people would tie up their pack animals to other people's animals that were already hitched, hoping that they could conduct their business and leave before the animal's owner returned -- similar to our modern "double parking". This was, of course, an inconvenience for the owner of the properly-hitched animal, if they returned to find strange animals tied to their own. Frustrated pioneers would often untie the unwanted animals and whip them down the street to get then out of their way. But sometimes, the less-ethical pioneers would leave the animals tied on, hauling the asses -- and their owner's possessions -- out of town and into the wild west, as additions to their own supply trains. To get one's asses hauled was a devastating loss, as pack animals and supplies were desperately needed by the pioneers. But it was a loss that usually generated very little sympathy, as hitching on to other's animals was considered to be asking for trouble in the dangerous frontier towns.
2. A phrase used after a spontaneous human combustion incident, "having to get one's ashes hauled."
3. Having one's ashes hauled comes from the traditions of the Northern tribes of Europe. A standard custom of burning the dead would be followed by the widow or widower being left to clean up after the deceased. It was also tradition for anyone who was very close to help. It became a saying that when one person had made love to another, that they had someone to haul their ashes. Later, as the phase was commonly used, its meaning deteriorated to anyone who had sex with anyone else.
4. Probably etymology: to achieve orgasm. Origin is in Black American blues lingo of the 1940s; "ash" is most likely a polite version of "ass."
5. ".Achieving orgasm is known to Black English speakers as 'having one's ashes (semen) hauled'.This expression probably is derived from rhyming slang for 'ash' (which may be a corruption of 'ass') but also suggests the ancient and medieval concept of semen as poison if not regularly vented."
6. Marine English: having your ashes hauled, in refrence to furnance being cleaned on ship, generally done in port.
Transliteral meaning: carnal fulfillment while on leave/liberty.
7. Refers to the Etruscan custom of gathering into urns the ashes of fallen warriors, burned after battle. The urns would be loaded and carried along with the army until the return home -- toward the rear of the column, near where the camp followers would be. From time to time, grieving soldiers would fall back to pray over the ashes of their lost friends, sometimes even carrying the urn for some distance as a sacrifice in honor of the dead, after which the camp followers would comfort them with a life-affirming sexual encounter.
8. "A long time ago I heard a discussion on the etymology of this expression. I seem to remember that it had something to do with strictly orthodox Jewish people who because of their religious convictions would do no work of any kind on the Sabbath. They paid other people - often recruited from the local black population - to do any essential tasks for them (one of the jobs which had to be done daily was clearing out the fireplace, a chore known as "hauling ashes"). Jewish men regarded sexual intercourse on the Sabbath as work and thus abstained from it, so if their wives felt a little frisky on that day they got their Sabbath servants to service them - a practice referred to euphemistically as "hauling ashes".
9. It comes from calling wastebaskets "ashcans" "getting one's ashes hauled" mean's something like "airing out dirty laundry" putting things someone doesn't want others to know about out for all the world to see.
(These are not in poll form because they are too effing long. Also, I cut any references cited.)
1. The phrase "getting one's ashes hauled" is actually derived from the phrase "getting one's asses hauled"-- a spelling error that was then perpetuated by the puritanical movement to clean up the rough language of the frontier.
In the 1800s land rush of the American West, inns and saloons on the major trails were often very busy with weary travellers stopping for a rest, all their earthly possessions packed onto horses, mules, and donkeys outside. The hitching posts would fill up quickly in the afternoons, as people stopped for the night in these "rush towns" along the Santa Fe and Oregon trails. If the hitching post was full, many people would tie up their pack animals to other people's animals that were already hitched, hoping that they could conduct their business and leave before the animal's owner returned -- similar to our modern "double parking". This was, of course, an inconvenience for the owner of the properly-hitched animal, if they returned to find strange animals tied to their own. Frustrated pioneers would often untie the unwanted animals and whip them down the street to get then out of their way. But sometimes, the less-ethical pioneers would leave the animals tied on, hauling the asses -- and their owner's possessions -- out of town and into the wild west, as additions to their own supply trains. To get one's asses hauled was a devastating loss, as pack animals and supplies were desperately needed by the pioneers. But it was a loss that usually generated very little sympathy, as hitching on to other's animals was considered to be asking for trouble in the dangerous frontier towns.
2. A phrase used after a spontaneous human combustion incident, "having to get one's ashes hauled."
3. Having one's ashes hauled comes from the traditions of the Northern tribes of Europe. A standard custom of burning the dead would be followed by the widow or widower being left to clean up after the deceased. It was also tradition for anyone who was very close to help. It became a saying that when one person had made love to another, that they had someone to haul their ashes. Later, as the phase was commonly used, its meaning deteriorated to anyone who had sex with anyone else.
4. Probably etymology: to achieve orgasm. Origin is in Black American blues lingo of the 1940s; "ash" is most likely a polite version of "ass."
5. ".Achieving orgasm is known to Black English speakers as 'having one's ashes (semen) hauled'.This expression probably is derived from rhyming slang for 'ash' (which may be a corruption of 'ass') but also suggests the ancient and medieval concept of semen as poison if not regularly vented."
6. Marine English: having your ashes hauled, in refrence to furnance being cleaned on ship, generally done in port.
Transliteral meaning: carnal fulfillment while on leave/liberty.
7. Refers to the Etruscan custom of gathering into urns the ashes of fallen warriors, burned after battle. The urns would be loaded and carried along with the army until the return home -- toward the rear of the column, near where the camp followers would be. From time to time, grieving soldiers would fall back to pray over the ashes of their lost friends, sometimes even carrying the urn for some distance as a sacrifice in honor of the dead, after which the camp followers would comfort them with a life-affirming sexual encounter.
8. "A long time ago I heard a discussion on the etymology of this expression. I seem to remember that it had something to do with strictly orthodox Jewish people who because of their religious convictions would do no work of any kind on the Sabbath. They paid other people - often recruited from the local black population - to do any essential tasks for them (one of the jobs which had to be done daily was clearing out the fireplace, a chore known as "hauling ashes"). Jewish men regarded sexual intercourse on the Sabbath as work and thus abstained from it, so if their wives felt a little frisky on that day they got their Sabbath servants to service them - a practice referred to euphemistically as "hauling ashes".
9. It comes from calling wastebaskets "ashcans" "getting one's ashes hauled" mean's something like "airing out dirty laundry" putting things someone doesn't want others to know about out for all the world to see.