Some facts from the 1500s!

[L Austin France]

Apparently we Europeans have a distinctive smell due to our consumption of dairy products.

Cheesy feet?

[Veem]

What an interesting thread. I do remember someone more knowledgeable than I (I think I was about 14 and very naive) that redheads had a very particular odour.

[ajm]

Us redheads smell great - irresistible!

[Quiksilver]

Bayleaf's mention of the dirt floors reminded me. When I arrived in 2001 I was made aware of people in Brittany still living in houses with dirt floors. My wood supplier and his aged mum lived in such a house. And one day we saw her repairing her wooden clogs. The single room house I bought that year had been occupied by eleven people

Like our barn...apparently it housed cows and 13 people including the ancestors of a former Maire of the village. Vive la démocratie

[Loup-garou]

I wonder if the ear wax thing has any connection with people who have smelly feet ?

Following on from Bayleaf's piece:- Hence the term "Keeping your ear to the ground".

[L Austin France]

Some nautical sayings which relate to dropping a wax bottomed lead weight on a knotted string off a ship to find out the depth & type of bottom. The string was knotted at 6ft (fathom) intervals
Swinging the lead
Plumbing the depths

[Doug]

Some nautical sayings which relate to dropping a wax bottomed lead weight on a knotted string off a ship to find out the depth & type of bottom. The string was knotted at 6ft (fathom) intervals
Swinging the lead
Plumbing the depths

Been there, done that, way back in my sailing days on the Solent.

[DominicBest]

The word knot used to describe the speed of one nautical mile per hour also comes from a knotted cord and dates from the 17th century, when sailors measured the speed of their ship using a device called a common log. The common log was a rope with knots at regular intervals, attached to a piece of wood shaped like a slice of pie.
Then there’s the word posh. This is supposed to have come from the ships travelling between England and India. Rich passengers preferred travelling in the cooler cabins on the ship so that was Port Out Starboard Home or POSH.

[Blaze]

If anyone has read Patrick O'Brian's novels about the Royal Navy in Napoleonic times, it was very interesting to see just how many ordinary expressions we use today actually originate from the RN. I've read all his books with Aubrey and his side kick Maturin - brilliant.
Here are a few :
Letting the cat out of the bag.
Over a barrel
Even keel
True colours
Pull your finger out
Above board
Square meal
Slush fund
Scupper
and there are dozens more !

[DominicBest]

I grew up in a house called Beam Ends. The name didn’t come from from a romantic source like rays of sunshine or historic carpentry in the roof, it was another nautical term. A ship on her beam ends is on her side and my parents thought that the untidy contents of their house resembled the inside of a ship after it had been on its beam ends with things thrown everywhere and nothing where it was supposed to be.
While we are at it, writing the previous sentence reminded me of a strange bit of political correctness or whatever. Having explained many times over why I always referred to le bateau as she I discovered that Lloyds of London no longer refer to ships as being female. According to them a ship is gender neutral, an it.