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The overhanging fronts on a building have nothing to do with chucking crap out of windows. It’s called Jettying it’s mainly to do with increase floor space on a cramped footprint. There are other reasons to. Watch this to find out. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zBVPcr7VjyQ.html
The old expression 'to spend a penny' is obsolete. Now that the EU has a common currency, the new term is 'to euronate'. Otherwise, keep up the good work!
I’m a casual etymologist and this was just great fun! I’m also a teacher of English, and idioms are infamously difficult for non-English speakers and special-needs students ( two populations I love teaching). Thanks for these!!
I was born in S. Calif. US & I had no difficulty understanding most of their slang. It was great fun, and when I didn't, I simply asked. Everyone I met was gracious, & willing tell me. My fav was Snoggin. 😘
I taught English in Taiwan for 24 years. One thing I taught was NOT to change words in adages and sayings...... Here is how I learned that: 46 years ago, my best friend and I took a large group of Japanese tourists to an American football game. Our group is a tight group in the seats for our team, the SF 49ers, and the other team had the ball. The running back carried the ball, and the Japanese heard the crowd yelling, "Kill him! Kill him!" There was a flurry of Japanese, (language) amongst themselves....(and I heard, mixed in the conversation "hurt him bad") I got the gist and knew it wouldn't go well, but before I could do anything..... .... the opponents ran another running play... the Japanese not wanting to be rude or too violent, started shouting, "Hurt him bad! Hurt him bad!" The area around us (10 or so rows up, down and the same number of seats left and right) went silent...and all heads turned our way.......for several seconds......you could SEE the "WTF!?!?!?!?" on their faces The Japanese were so embarrassed by the attention that none of them used English in public for the next several days. It took several attempts at explaining that the words weren't meant, and in those times, just say what you hear.... It was hilarious
@@randomgrinn Authorities note To Insure Prompt Service is probably a back-formation (and not a rigorous one). A pet idiom peeve right now is 'spittin(g) image' for 'spit and image,' _spit_ itself being a blurry pronunciation of 'spirit.' "It's the spirit and image of him!"
That was very interesting. I'm American and I'm very familiar with most of these Idioms. It's amazing that some of them survived as long as they did in England, made it over here and hundreds of years later, we're still saying them. Thanks for sharing this. I am subscribing.
Phrases often get 'coined' - posh twits pay for them to be printed - and thereby propagandised ... ... further propagandisation occurs with the texts, including the dictionnaries, that we get rammed down our throats in fish-school ... ...so why do united statsians speak like the inglish (spelled 'english') ... ... same school mind-control program ... same media mind-control program ... same empire funding the programs ...
I agree with many of the comments. I have heard many of these idioms through the years and use some of them. These are probably heard in most English speaking countries.
Not only was it great to hear the origins of these sayings (have to adnut, there were a few I've never heard of, but still interesting), BUT you actually took the time to go to the locations making it far more interesting. Well done!
Brits don't really like being called brits . That means British , comprising of 4 countries. We're English dear boy , different class from the lowly ruffians. (Best said in noel coward voice) 😂😂
@@peterherrington3300 So sorry Peter. We love the English too! Your English dry wit is classic. Sorry to mix the English in the same pot of stew! That being said, I do have a great deal of respect for the English people. Their countless great accomplishments have changed the entire world. The entire free English speaking world has its roots in your English soil.
I remember my daughter getting a page FULL of British idioms to translate at 10 yo from school. It’s not surprising how much she already knew considering we still use so many in everyday conversation, and the ones she didn’t were joyfully explained by my grandparents.
I am Australian but my mum and grandparents were immigrants in the 70s. I had quite a broad Yorkshire accent until around age 7 and pretty much had to translate just about every term I used into Aussie for my classmates to know what I was talking about. Even now, 30+ years later, I notice my kids translating certain phrases to their friends lol
@@TaureanTrishI wasn't writing to, but Louise Bentley; nonetheless, in Yorkshire, it just so happens that many of the residents speak using Thee & Thou. There are several delightful pockets that do. Next time mind your own business!
I remember an incident as a kid regarding "hear a pin drop": our teacher would try to get us to be quiet by telling us to be so quiet we could hear a pin drop and would literally hold up a pin. Of course, we all got really quiet - but not for long. The moment we heard the pin drop (and you actually did!), everybody would break out in a chorus of "I heard it!"
Isn’t the overhanging feature in Tudor houses because they taxed the size of the house depending on the area on the ground floor not for expelling waste?
Yes that could be one of the reasons, it's definitely not to throw toilet waste out the window. That's largely a myth, waste was usually put into latrines or cesspits and workers were paid (a decent wage for the time) to dig it out and collect it. Heavy fines were levied if you did try and chuck crap out your window.
It's also a good design feature, as the weight of the upper outside walls would stop the upper inside floor from sagging by using the downstairs wall as a pivot.
@@Mary-Ann_B_Mabaet People throwing waste out of windows must have happened but we can't be totally sure how commonplace it was, just like now we have laws against things that don't occur particularly often. What we do know is that fouling the roadway was always discouraged and house architecture was never built with that in mind.
Absolutely right, all about tax! Ground area tax. Amount of bricks tax! Hence bricks got larger by 50% therefore reducing tax. Window tax! Hence bricked up windows and the expression "daylight robbery"
So Joolz, the overhanging second and third stories of some older buildings is structural and not scatological. The cantilevered floor joists are stronger in the middle and can support more weight with fewer posts than flush construction. It also makes for more room on the upper floors. They do indeed protect the lower walls from rain and _other_ falling moisture but that is not their primary purpose. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jettying Best wishes to you ...
In Chester there's a row of such houses still standing in the middle of town. Over the centuries the ground floors have been extended to install shop fronts and the upstairs 'front rooms' are now an open walkway in front of the upper level shops. You can still see some of the original floor boards and window seats. I used to love going there with my dogs, but I can't any more as the steps up to them are more than I can cope with now.
I wouldn't doubt that it was a secondary benefit that the filth could be thrown out a little farther away from the base of the home, but it is clear that is not why they were built that way. It would have just been a happy unintended benefit of the design.
@Thom Looney I should probably have read the comments before pointing out the very same thing. You've also written it far more eloquently than I have. Should I delete...?
What I was told in Germany was that houses were taxed by the footprint at ground level, and this prompted people to build cantilevered upper floors, where they then coincidentally discovered the structural benefits. Whether this is true or not, I can't say, but it is interesting.
horacefarbuckle I was told the same thing in Belgium (which didn’t exist yet at the time but was very likely under the same regime as current Germany was at the time)
First joke was based on Ade Emondson's appearance in Black Adder. "How lucky you English are to find the toilet so amusing. For us, it is a mundane and functional item. For you it is the basis of an entire culture."
@tinylilmatt Yes, I do....I think those kind of comments are a show of immaturity. It's not like every country has had perfect leadership. The history books are full of the good, bad and the in between.
It is funny how some idioms are similar in other countries, for example in Mexico we say "aguas" (water -in plural) to refer "watch out with the water coming out of the window", but in modern times to it just means : "be careful"
@@UgleZett I won't argue with you, as it's a corrupted form of French used by ordinary folk. I was just passing on what I read, but I'm happy with either version.
This is a really great video -- it's better than most "tour" videos people make about London. I hope you can make more like this, where you can mention a phrase or a fact while showing us the actual site or artifact that it comes from. That would be really great. Thanks.
Thanks Bruce. The funny thing is this didn't take much time to make. I've been spending ages making my other films but whenever I throw one out in a rush everyone always likes it! Maybe I should rush more! That said, I have quite a lot of videos in which I visit places and explain phrases which sprung from there, but yes, I reckon I'll do more since you liked it!
I thought “on the wagon” referred to the temperance wagons complete with bands and signs denouncing alcohol. These were common for attracting attention to other causes that had enough support to organize band wagons: hence the expression for joining any cause that had already gained popularity.
Expression is used in US, but usually in the negative. If someone gave up something then start doing it again, their failure is referred to as "falling (fell) off the wagon". Start a new diet then splurge on chocolate cake: off the wagon.
We Americans also have the phrase "on the wagon" and it means the same thing, but we have different origin. Temperance groups would do marches through communities with a bass drum and a wagon full of people who had sworn off alcohol. So, when someone was no longer drinking, they were "on the wagon." And when they resumed drinking, they "fell off the wagon."
Thank goodness for that. It's also very apparent now that the media are using stupid American ways of speaking English, makes it sound like a foreign language. For instance using the word gotten instead of got, or from the get go instead of from the start or beginning. Americanisms do not improve English, only show how stupid the media are in adopting an inferior way of expressing oneself
Wonderful and thank you so much. So interesting . I am a perminantly homesick Brit stuck in boring Melbourne , Australia to be near family. I just adore our British idiocycracies . Sorry am disssskexxxxic . From UK Susie
"Pardon my French", is used as an apology when a person unwittingly utters an expletive in polite company. The Americans also use it. The origins are rumoured to date back to Huguenot refugees attempting to Anglicise themselves by speaking only English but occasionally accidentally reverting back to the odd French word in a sentence. As was usual in English history England was not on good terms with France at the time so speaking French was frowned upon. Huguenot refugees wanted to display loyalty to their new country, England, hence the apology, "Pardon my French".
@@justtowatch111 Hugenots were committed Christians. Todays refugees, fully committed to an ideology hostile to Western Christian civilization and fully committed to replacing it.
Most are so old, and America so young (Americans often forget that we have buildings older than their country!) that I'd expect most old sayings to have survived on both sides, and with the birth of the Internet, the new ones would migrate in both directions. So interesting yes, but a surprise certainly not!
I'm definitely American but my mother could trace back to her great-grandfather. He moved from London to California in the later half of the 19th century. I heard nearly all of these expressions but had no idea where they came from, thanks.
Thanks for reminding me of the song "Maybe it's because I'm a londoner", haven't heard that for maybe 20 years or so. I think we used to sing it at school, which is a bit strange, since I'm from Norway.
I am a total Anglophile and love all the idioms and sayings. One of my favorites is "climbing the wooden hills to Bedfordshire." I got that from "Midsomer Murders. "
In the spirit of 'on the wagon,' a little macabre history: at the crossing of Edgware Road, Bayswater Road, and Oxford Street (close to Marble Arch) stood the triangular gallows of Tyburn, which gave rise to a number of euphemisms for being hanged: '[to] preach at Tyburn Cross,' 'wear a Tyburn tippet [scarf],' 'dance the Tyburn jig,' etc. 'Tyburn Tree' stood and was used for executions from 1571 to 1759.
@@AbuMaia01 That would be derived from one of Kipling's 'Barrack Room Ballads," "They're 'angin' Danny Deever in the morning'." There was another term, 'to dance the Newgate polka' which also referred to a hanging.
I've bombed a few toilets in my day, day before yesterday i managed to fill it above the water and clogged the powerful commercial toilet, and I was so proud that fact that I spent 5 minutes bragging about it to a random stranger on the internet
I,m 67 and have always found colloquialism fascinating, now I’ve found your channel I,m going to binge watch the lot, thank you for no intrusive LOUD music or flashing lights, just interesting unusual facts, presented in a normal conversational manner, I,m off to have a cup of rosy lee down the apples and pears. ( cringe🙄 ) x
Thanks for posting! I'm a crazy Canadian 'Anglophile ' . I knew some of these things (a geeky history, trivia junkie) It was great to learn about the background. Thanks again :)
Funnily enough, "Bob's your uncle" is the one saying that seems to have stayed with me my entire life coming from British heritage here in Canada. Love the questioning look on faces when I say it.
That comes from an English Parliamentarian of the late 19th Century named Robert (forget his last name) who was known for granting favours. If he granted you a favour then it was like he was your uncle (nepotism) hence "Bob's you uncle".
We say, "He's fallen off the wagon," meaning he had stopped drinking and is getting drunk again. Our illusion is to the temperance movement in America. Supposedly, people who had sobered up would appear at outdoor temperance demonstration, so falling off the wagon meant hitting the bottle once more. Curiously, the expressions fit perfectly and no translation is required.
I've just found you and I'm ecstatic by the discovery!! I'm sure your videos will teach me a lot of English and help me improve my listening comprehension!
Did you know that there really was a Fanny Adams? She was a child that got murdered by a loony & he got hanged for the crime. Years after the incident, a Sailor on board his ship loudly complained about his dinner, he points at his bowl of stew in front of his shipmates saying, "THAT'S what happened to Sweet Fanny Adams!". He was basically saying it looked & tasted like 💩, hence Sweet F.A. has the same meaning as 'I don't give a 💩'.
Hello from America 😊 I may not know my tea, and my expertise only goes as far as knowing what I like. But. . . I love Twinings tea, especially Prince of Wales. I do enjoy your videos.☺🌻
It's from ensuring no space is wasted between loaves when baking three rows in an oven of common size (4-5-4). Also, people have never commonly emptied their chamber pots onto the street in all but the worst corners of any town (as you were heavily fined for doing so and there were legal ways to get rid of all sorts of waste including that kind) and the supposed reason for jettied floors is thus painfully wrong (they simply wanted to have more storage/living space). And the origin of "tip" strikes me as highly unlikely as well. The London-specific trivia may be correct, but given the quality of the general stuff... lordy.
Fascinating. My Dad was English and our family all still talk about 'spending a penny' here in Australia. He also used to say 'spend a shilling', meaning something a little more substantial. 😉
I'm an court reporter in the United States, and I love hearing about the origins or our language (yeah, I'm a geek) Thanks for taking the time to make a video. I love telling folks her about the United States slang we still have from the UK pre-revolution -- bread, dough, and raspberries. You could probably make a funnier video than i could -- probably have.
George Mooyman in Canada, in the 70’s, we had pay toilets, for highway road stops & they required a dime, or slide under the door.😁 Or, Of Gramma’s there, she’d hold the door, so I could sneak in (I was ten). 🥰 Pay phones were a dime, too.
There are so many phrases that would be interesting to learn about. Bob's your uncle, sixes and sevens, and so on. Apparently I've been pronouncing Twinings wrong for years as well.
They both mean There you go....thats it.. in esscence the last word final outcome.. If you cross the road without looking you get run over and killed..then its Bobs your uncle. Dead
After extensive research (a quick Google), I have been able to ascertain that the phrase "Bob's your uncle" possibly originated as a result of the supposed nepotism of the Third Marquis of Salisbury (Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil) in appointing a favourite nephew, Arthur Balfour, to several political posts in the 1880s, "Bob" was literally his uncle and made things easy for him to accomplish. Another suggestion is that it came from a music hall song of the 1930s. The best I can manage for "at sixes and sevens" is that it originated from a dice game as far back as the 14th century, when it had a different meaning, viz, to risk everything carelessly.
Loads of fun. I always wondered about being on the wagon. I've said it many times with the exact same meaning in the US but I never knew its origins. Thanks mate. 👍🏼
I really enjoy your videos . I have heard a different story with regards to being on the wagon, which is not too dissimilar to what you said but it is accompanied with ‘One for the road’ which is used for having one last drink before leaving for home. This came from the condemned prisoner being given a drink at the start of their journey to Tyburn being their last and drunk while they journeyed up Tyburn Road. The Gaoler would also be offered a drink but would refuse as ‘he was on the wagon’ .
That is a different story from the one I heard. The Salvation Army was very keen on recruiting and saving, particularly from the demon drink. They went about with brass band and accompanying singers, and a wagon. Those being collected would climb onto the wagon to be taken to some SA facility for food, housing etc. No more drink.....
The Great Exhibition was not at Crystal Palace. It was in Hyde Park. The structure that housed the exhibition was called ‘The Crystal Palace’ and was meant to be temporary, but it was so popular and admired that a decision was taken to preserve it and in 1854 it was moved to Sydenham Hill, and the area became known as Crystal Palace because of it. The Crystal Palace burned down in 1936. The foundations are still visible in Crystal Palace Park (I used to live a stones throw from the park back in the 80s).
I'm from the UK and was familiar with most of these, but living in the USA now I'd forgotten most of them. Great reminder! Although I'd have thought the T.I.P. origin story of "to insure promptness" would more accurately be "to Ensure promptness"... Two words commonly mistakenly interchanged and misused! Debate?
I quite agree. It seems to me that one must decide which is correct: (a) the traditional gammarian's gripe of people wrongly using insure rather than ensure, or (b), the cutesy anagram for TIP. I'm siding with the grammarians.
In US English, there is no ensure. They only use insure. As tipping originated in Britain, I’m also on the side of the grammarians, which doesn’t mean that Twinings didn’t get on the bandwagon as a marketing stunt.
I heard that “one for the road” was a drink for the condemned man. As they passed a pub the landlord was obliged to give him a drink. It was the guy driving him that couldn’t drink, therefore he was on the wagon.
I always thought it came from the temperance wagon that people were encouraged to climb on when they'd turned their back on alcohol. Also I think hot chocolate was developed as a substitute for beer.
In Irish Gaelic and Scottish Gallic we have the phrase "Deoch an Dorais" and "Deoch an Doras". That means "The door drink ". That's the equivalent of one for the road.
Hi Joolz, thanks for the awesome video! I'm from Taiwan and I'll be visiting London for the first time next summer. These phrases and history are very helpful and interesting! (P.S. I love your documentaries. Would love to see your take on Taiwan, especially my city Kaohsiung!!)
Super super great video ! I’m english , but I learnt more in the last ten minutes about some of the expressions than in all of my life ! I live in France and teach English to adult groups . All the groups will be watching and listening to you in the next few days ! Well done Joolz !
Very interesting. I delight in learning the origins of expressions in our English (international) language. I'm a seventy -six years old Australian, the son of a Scotsman. When dad had a few beers he was hard to understand, and very amusing. So, his mates would try to wind him up with lager. Then I'd have to quiz him with please explains. English language, I love it, in all its' forms and accents, and origins!
@@india239 Hi i was trying to round it up, i'm 47 although i don't say it and never did because it was my grandparents that would say it it would be sad if you never hear again.
If the tax thing were true, the government would just adjust the tax laws to the primary style of building. In reality, the cost to build a house was largely the cost of the stone foundation portion. Also, from an architecture point of view, a support beam supported only by its ends tends to sag. The overhang supports the beams a few ft from the ends and reduces sag by providing a counterweight on the other side. Also, there were rules about the width of the street that limited the size of homes, but the second floor was allowed to extend further, so home owners did it to get the additional space.
Matt & 44 thumbs-uppers - Obviously people below getting hit w/shyte & urine had MORE to do with it that a few extra feet of space..........I imagine these owners would eventually get killed for THAT. cheers
@@dr.elizabethmartin7118 Except that it makes no sense. If you wanted to toss poop out your front window, what difference would it make to extend your window out 4 ft? If that were the primary goal (waste disposal), a much simpler solution would have been created, such as a chute or 100 other better ideas than "extend the whole front of the building".
Here in The Netherlands we know "You could hear a pin drop' as 'Je kon een speld horen vallen' practically the same! Also a 'Baker's dozen' is known here, but only with an other story. Here in The Netherlands, the bakers baked 'Beschuit' in amounts of 25 pieces. Shops who sold the beschuit sometimes ordered half of the amount. But 25 devided by 2 is of course 12,5. So the bakers sold the shop owners 13 pieces of beschuit.
I read years ago that the bakers' dozen was a french revolutionary thing. They had passed some VERY vicious laws about food prices - when there was a grain shortage - and no-one could afford to be caught giving short measure. So that would be around 1795?
Ha. Also, the first known recording of a "T.I.P. box" didn't appear until the 1940s (in Time or Life magazine I think it was) where they claimed the tradition was centuries old in Europe, though no evidence for the claim was given. And we have no older records of people commenting on or using such boxes. So the thought that this started hundreds of years ago and was in widespread use and no one ever thought to write about it until the 1940s seems unlikely. Plus, it doesn't make sense. A non-transparent wooden box? How would anyone know you "insured promptness" at all that way? Or that you didn't just drop in a penny rather than a pound (modern term equivalents, I'm not calculating inflation)? It's a terrible way to "insure" anything. Any tipping for promptness would be far more effective just slipped straight into the hand of the person you want to bribe to be prompt (a tradition that certainly does go back centuries, or even millennia). Even the claim that the word is an acronym for "To Insure Promptness" at all is pretty much agreed by linguists to be a backronym, or an acronym formed after the fact to give a word already in use retroactive meaning. So probably the word 'tip' came first, no one knows why, and then a century or so later, in a flight of journalistic fancy to make overseas travel that much more exotic and foreign, some reporter invented a story about the origin of tipping with the acronym inserted. Also the fact that acronyms themselves were not really common (or commonly understood by the layman) until the industrial revolution of the mid-1800s, when railroads began to spread the idea by labeling lines with acronyms--think the B&O line in Monopoly--to make then fit on less paper for printed schedules and in newspapers (because it was cheaper and it meant the paper was more likely to print them). This was further spread by the use of ticker-tape machines and telegraphs in the late 1800s, where you paid by the character and acronyms were far cheaper to send. They grew in use through the 1920s (especially in company names and advertising), but EXPLODED in popularity during and following WWII, where they became cultural commonplace due to military terminology. And that happens to be precisely when the first recorded instance that the word "tip" was really "T.I.P." was written down. The box in the company museum was likely made in the mid-1900s to brag to tourists and further create a mystique for a long-established British company looking for a marketing edge.
@MusicMadMaurice AFTER a meal or service? We also have tip jars in the US. We truly need to leave room for cultural and time period customs having changed.
As I have mentioned elsewhere, tipping is supposed to be extra(ordinary). Like the army handing out medals. Not ment to be an every day practice. And as for 'ensure', it means to make certain, 'insure' means to protect against.
The “on the wagon” part was interesting. Building on that, I guess, is why in America we say “fell off the wagon “ when someone who is trying to stay sober starts drinking again
Bob's your uncle derives from the man who set up the first Police force in Britain- Roberts (Bob) Peele. The saying is meant to mean that everything is great if Bob's your uncle because he was a policeman so you'd never have hassle etc.
It comes from the dubious appointment to a privileged political position of the nephew of Sir Robert Peel, the founder of the British police force. It was to infer that he would not have got the appointment but for the intervention of his uncle Robert. The saying "Bob's your uncle" would always be a accompanied by a knowing wink.
The British are a political union and not a country... England, Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland make up these islands ... No country called British. The British removed the English nationality in 1981 with the British nationality act. England is a captive nation and the last significant colony of the British empire.
@@annmcgranaghan2131 Britons are not British... And man and women are not citizens or persons, unless you are want to be a slave. LOOK UP A WARRIOR CALLS CHANNEL BY CHRISTOPHER JAMES AND FIND OUT WHO YOU ARE 😁 👍
@ozone1959 Oh I know who I am and I don't need you to tell me. I am Scottish and since Scotland is one country of Britain I am therefore British. However I would not say I am a British, I would say I am a Briton. Grammar!
(01:33) The cantilevered floor is called "jettying", and has nothing to do with throwing chamber pots out of windows. It was simply to improve living space - nothing more than that. The contents of the chamber pot landing farther away may have been a fortunate accident, but it certainly has nothing to do with the architectural design itself.
My grandad used to say “me dogs are barking” His feet were hurting. Lol. We’d go for a butchers at something. And, he’d have an oily rag while I was on the pot. It’s like a different language I suppose for others, outside of England.
Lol, I find the line from “My Fair Lady” when Henry Higgins, speaking on how terrible it is that English isn’t spoken correctly: “...Why, in America they haven’t spoken it for years!...” makes me grin every time. I’ve always found different accents, phrases & ways of speaking interesting.
Hi! Just a quick favour! I've started a new Instagram account because the old one got deleted!!!! PLEASE HELP ME TO BUILD MY NEW INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT BY FOLLOWING ME: instagram.com/joolzguidesofficial/ Or @JoolzGuidesOfficial
So I really do 1. hope you'll be spending less pennies after brexit; 2. advise pin-drop method to silence opposition; 3. recommend baker's dozen principle to ensure T.I.P. and avoid being sent to coventry, and 4. pray you get off the wagon before 31 October!
Hey, nice job! I often watch English history vids all day long. I'm also aware of current events "across the pond". But, I never get a sense of what England sounds and feels like. I think you also help us Americans in understanding British mentality. Thanks!
Half of this video is rubbish - e.g. 'on the wagon', stopping drinking, has a pretty obvious meaning of shaking and discomfort, nothing to do with condemned prisoners going to Tyburn. Ditto 'quiet enough to hear a pin drop'.
In Denmark the expression is to be 'on the water wagon'...I have no clue whether there ever were carts transporting water in Denmark, or how the water bit was added to the expression.
I learned that during famine times in Ireland, a landlord, Lord Coventry, treated his tenants so bad that people decided to give him the silent treatment, and that's where the phase being sent to Coventry came from. It's interesting hearing other versions of it.
Are you perhaps thinking of Charles Cunningham Boycott? There doesn't appear to be any record of the Earl of Coventry owning land in Ireland, or his being connected to the phrase, but I stand to be corrected.
I believe that the reason that first floors in old houses are bigger than lower floors is because of an old law where you pay more tax on the area covering the ground floor land occurred, this way it would save the owner/renter money, and the slopping out was just done as an afterthought.
