Word for the day: Origin of the word crap It has often been claimed in popular culture that the slang term for human bodily waste, crap, originated with Thomas Crapper [English plumber 1836-1910] because of his association with lavatories. The most common version of this story is that American servicemen stationed in England during World War I saw his name on cisterns and used it as army slang, ie Im going to the crapper. The word crap is actually of Middle English origin; and predates its application to bodily waste. Its most likely etymological origin is a combination of two older words, the Dutch krappen: to pluck off, cut off, or separate; and the Old French crappe: siftings, waste or rejected matter (from the medieval Latin crappa, chaff). In English, it was used to refer to chaff, and also to weeds, or other rubbish. Its first application to bodily waste, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, appeared in 1846 under a reference to a crapping ken, or a privy, where ken means a house.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 00:39:56 +0000
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