This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
YYZ: I was going to replace the opening quote with this, but I don't know how well it would work...
Hob Gadling on Renaissance festivals: "You know what's wrong with this place? Well, the first thing that's wrong is there's no shit. I mean, that's the thing about the past that people forget. All the shit. Animal shit. People shit. Cow shit. Horse shit. You waded through the stuff. You should spray 'em all with shit as they come through the gates." — SANDMAN, Neil Gaiman
Morgan Wick: It seems this may be a Brit trope.
Phartman: I sort of like the other related quote from Monty Python:
- "He must be the king.""How do you know that?""Cuz he ain't got shit all over him."
Po8: Excised "Ironically, Monty Python's Terry Jones has pointed out that the absence of refined sugar in this age meant, contrary to popular assumption, one thing most people in the Middle Ages did not have was rotten teeth."
The history of medieval dentistry is complicated, but suffice it to say that European medievals who lived long enough (into their late twenties) usually ended up with worn, dead, rotten teeth. Remember, this is also pre-fluoride, pre-toothbrushing, and the era of stone-ground flour.
CA Lieber: I'm not sure where it would fit exactly, but mention might be made of the notion that men had a unimodal lifespan of 30 or so years, and a 40-year-old would be considered remarkable and elderly (even though a psalmist anticipated making it to 70 even before medical science was invented).
