Ha! 🙂 I bet you read the title to this blog post and thought one of two things … either I was really angry about something, or something bad had happened to me or my rig.
Well, neither one is true. While messing around on the internet here at home, I just happened to stumble upon a very interesting website that explained the history of where one very important word came from. The word? Crap!
Now, I know, some of you may not like to see that word in print … some of you may not ever speak the word … and some of you may not like to hear the word spoken. But it’s an interesting word.
Besides being a pretty darned good swear word when the situation might require one, there’s also the use of the word “crapper” to describe an outhouse, or other toilet facilities.
So, where did all this … um “stuff” about this word come from?
Here’s the deal … it all started back in 1836 when an Englishman by the name of Thomas Crapper was born. He grew up and became a plumber, and started his own plumbing equipment company named “Thomas Crapper & Co.” in London, England.
Crapper held 9 patents, 3 of them for “water closet” improvements such as the floating ballcock (floating what? ha!). He invented the S-bend plumbing trap thereby improving upon the U-bend and the P-bend (really, don’t go there!). 🙂
In the end, as it were, Crapper was so famous for the brass plumbing equipment he built and sold that England’s King Edward VII hired Crapper to supply and install the entire lavatory system (30 lavatories and cedar seats) in the King’s country estate at Sandringham House.
Manhole covers with Crapper’s company’s name on them in the streets of Westminster Abbey have become one of London’s minor tourist attractions. Likewise, the company name “Crapper” was imprinted on every toilet he built and sold … hence … the crapper.
Tells you a lot doesn’t it?
But, there’s another story here too. Turns out that “crapper” doesn’t have much of anything to do with “crap”. Read on.
The use of the word “crap” as a popular profane word has often been associated with military personnel from the USA who were stationed in England during WWI and saw the word “Crapper” on toilets. But in fact, the word “crap” comes from much older Middle English and Dutch and Old French words, and even back to Medieval Latin (crappa, meaning siftings or rejected matter). In Middle English, the word “crap” was used to refer to chaff and also to weeds or other rubbish. The word had nothing to do with bodily waste.
So … the word “crap” is not a bad word after all. It simply means something of extremely poor quality or, as they say in Britain … “rubbish”!
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. 🙂 If the internet says it’s true, then it must be true.
Ha! One of my favorite blog posts of yours. Excellent!
Thanks Steve. 🙂
Excellent information, well researched, with historic background. And fun! I love this about your blog Ann. I like the camping stuff, but I like the other things you post about every bit as much. I’ve been online for a number of decades, and have never heard/read anyone else having researched the word “crap”. You’re the best. 🙂
Research and history AND fun. Thanks Kinny. 🙂
Language can change so fast. What fun Ann, thanks! Here’s to Thomas Crapper. Hope he made enough money to feel really flush, which means loaded with cash, a modern definition of the word “flush” that changed from long ago, and now a different definition than to “flush” a toilet. 🙂
Aaaaargh … “flush” … good one. 🙂
Thank you for the enlightenment. I feel so much smarter now! :cD
Ha! And so you should Paul. 🙂
Got a really good laugh out of other people’s comments. Thanks everyone. And yet I really like the etymology of the word crap … weeds, rubbish, siftings … it’s based on plant debris, not human waste. Where and how do we get so off base with our language, without even understanding what we’re saying? And yet I “googled” all this … and where did we get the word “google” from? It’s all good. 🙂
Right on, Cindy … plant debris, not human waste … a perfect comment. As someone else here commented, language can change so fast, and for seemingly no apparent reason other than a possible misunderstanding of the original meaning of a word. But this sure gives us fun stuff to look up and talk about.
So … google. When I was a kid, my mom used to sing “Horses, horses, crazy over horses … Barney Google with the goo-goo-googly eyes.” Barney Google had great BIG eyes in the cartoons. So I suspect the people who named today’s popular internet search engine figured Barney was looking everywhere with those huge eyes and named their search engine after him. But I don’t know. Ah! another research project. 🙂
When I was a kid, our family had a cabin on a lake with an outhouse. We kids had lots of fun on the lake of course, but we also got a real kick out of playing around the outhouse, and making up songs to sing while we sat in there and “did our business”, much to the consternation of our mother. Many of the songs had the words mentioned in your blog in them. Dad named our outhouse “The Happy Crapper”. And so NOW I know where that word came from. I’ve spent my whole life in ignorance, ha!, until today. Thanks Ann, that was a super blog post.
Gosh, what a great story, Emily. I can picture you kids out there. And I can picture your mom just shaking her head. 🙂
Ok, where did the game of Craps come from? You “shoot craps” in the game, what’s that about? It’s a game with dice, but why call it “craps”? Ann, we need your wisdom.
Ahhh, the game of craps. I do know a little bit about that, tho not much. The game of craps started out in mainland Europe as a game called Hazard, then a variation was developed in England in the 1700s called Krebs, and then later the game was popularized in the USA as Craps. That’s about all I know about it, and yes you “shoot craps” by rolling the dice. Language is weird sometimes, eh?
Crap, that was interesting!
LOL! 🙂