The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #56390   Message #883803
Posted By: Steve Parkes
06-Feb-03 - 03:22 AM
Thread Name: Fakelore
Subject: RE: Fakelore
Re: crap[per]. if it's any consolation ... "crap" is Old English (Anglo-Saxon) for "chaff", which is the stuff you throw away after separating grain from cereals; by extension, it can mean any form of rubbish/garbage. I think "Crapper" came to be synonymous with "lavatory" ["bathroom", if you're sensitive!] because Mr C's name was blazoned on the cisterns that he made; the same way we can say "the hoover", "the frigidaire", "the ford". Not sure if that's metonymy ... but, anyway, "crap" "is what you do in" or "what goes in" the crapper; and the "rubbish" sense of "crap" had already grown to include the "shit" sense.

Looks like another S-day!

Steve