The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #83816   Message #1542896
Posted By: Paul Burke
16-Aug-05 - 03:54 AM
Thread Name: BS: Old expressions explained
Subject: RE: BS: Old expressions explained
"Blue blood dates back to the ancient Britons using war-paint made of blue clay called woad. If one's family tree was traceable back to 1066 and beyond, one was clearly a blue-blood. That's my story and I'm stickin;' to it, unless some research proves I am full of it!!
"

Woad isn't clay; it's a plant. It's not very good as a skin dye, and almost certainly wasn't used by the Brits, unless they were daft, which is of course perfectly possible. The Brits, if they ever did use woad, stopped shortly after the Roman invasion of 43AD. The country was Saxon (and called itself England) when Billy the Bastard invaded, over a thousand years later. And most of the uppercrustocracy dated to the invasion (very few) or afterwards- the whole purpose of the conquest was to nick the peasants from the native bosses.

Apart from that, it was reasonably accurate, so I will not comment on your faecal plenitude.