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.