5 habits and expressions that have macabre origins

What we read, hear and speak is so automatic that we almost never wonder where some words come from. The fact is that language is an amazing thing, and what one thing means today might have a totally different meaning in the future. The same goes for some traditions that we keep without knowing why. In the opposite direction, we come to bizarre and macabre definitions of some entries and some very common attitudes. It's worth knowing more about it.

1 - Blue Blood

The notion of royalty blood came from the 15th century, when it was still believed that white people were better than black people. Since veins are more visible on fair skin, this idea was born that whites were noble and blacks not. That's ugly, huh!

2 - Bridesmaids

This is not even a linguistic issue, but a conceptual one at all. The role of bridesmaids was created in ancient Rome when friends of the bride dressed in the same way to confuse evil spirits and keep them from their future wife.

3 - The handshake

Originally, the handshake served as a guarantee that the greeting person had no hidden weapon. The shaking of the hand allows the person to prove that their sleeves are empty. The fact that they use their right hands also has to do with this distrust: most people use that hand to shoot.

4 - Drive on the right side of the street

There is one more decision made based on attack and defense tactics. The idea was to make it easier to point guns at someone coming in the opposite direction. It started with footpaths, continued when the wagons emerged and remains so to this day in various parts of the world.

5 - Fornication

The ancient Romans often asked the goddess Fornax to bless bread and baked goods in general. It seems that prostitutes used to lure their clients to locations near large suppliers. The ritual was almost always the same: eating bread and then having sex. Hence the relationship between one thing and another and the origin of the word.