Like we’ve said before, we’re a curious lot at Somnium. Between developing amazingly awesome beds and telling the world about them, we like to ponder seemingly insignificant matters of the English language. Today, we’re taking you on a verbal nerd-journey about sleepisms.

Sleepism Nerd-Out #1: “To wake up on the wrong side of the bed…”

You’re sitting at the breakfast table reading over the morning news on your iPad and sipping some coffee. Your significant other walks into the kitchen. You look up. Your heart skips a beat. For out of the shadowy confines of the bedroom has come an unkempt and unrested human ready for war. “Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” you say with a coy smile. The Romans would be proud of you. That’s right; they of the great empire and the fantastic amphitheatres are also the people who coined the phrase, “To get up on the wrong side of the bed.”   According to legend (and Wikipedia, message boards and a few other marginal sources), the Romans believed that anyone who woke up on the left side of the bed was doomed to a day of bad luck. Over time, the phrase has taken on a variety of meanings, but all of them mean one thing: Bad stuff happens when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Here’s to you, Rome!

Sleepism Nerd-Out #2: “Grumpy”

You’ve got to hand it to the Danes from Denmark (don’t confuse them with the Dutch from Holland). For all these years, we knew them as the oldest kingdom in the world, the owners of the oldest flag in the world, the inventors of LEGO’s and Skype, the creators of the beloved Hans Christian Andersen fairytales and the undisputed namesakes of the ongoing breakfast miracle, the Danish. What those wily old Danes didn’t tell us is that they invented the word “grumpy”.  According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the winding road from “grumpy” to its etymological manger ends somewhere amid the 444 islands and sparse mainland of Denmark. “Grum”, say the experts, is the root of “grumpy” and means “morose” or “surly”. Love it or hate it, the Danes invented grumpy.

Sadly, weekend nerd-out has come to a close. Today’s lessons? The Romans were very superstitious and the Danes owe the world a big apology. If our scholastic exposition of English vernacular has put you to sleep, your timing couldn’t be better:  Somnium happens to be in the mattress business.