I thought other linguaphiles might appreciate this excerpt from Robertson Davies's "The Rebel Angels":

I walked on toward Ploughwright, thinking about faeces. What a lot we had found out about the prehistoric past from the study of fossilised dung of long-vanished animals. A miraculous thing, really; a recovery of the past from what was carelessly rejected. And in the Middle Ages, how concerned people who lived close to the world of nature were with the faeces of animals. And what a variety of names they had for them: the Crotels of a Hare, the Friants of a Boar, the Spraints of an Otter, the Werderobe of a Badger, the Waggying of a Fox, the Fumets of a Deer. Surely there might be some words for the material so near to the heart of Ozy Froats better than shit? What about the Problems of a President, the Backward Passes of a Footballer, the Deferrals of a Dean, the Odd Volumes of a Librarian, the Footnotes of a Ph.D., the Low Grades of a Freshman, the Anxieties of an Untenured Professor? As for myself, might it not be appropriately called the Collect for the Day?


Can we extend the list to other animals or occupations?


Bingley

here are some more real ones afore we get down in the trenches:
ornithocopros - bird excrement (guano)
frass - debris or excrement produced by insects
bodewash - buffalo chips (or cow chips)
coprolite - fossilized excrement

This is a game I prefer to stay out of, but wwh has a wonderful story that would fit right in. Dr. Bill, if you didn't save it, I'll send it back so you can post it--no changes needed, as far as I'm concerned.

How about the Off-fall of an Ox? That's why I would never consider eating offal.

I shall refrain from any further scatalogical entries as Jackie still has me staying after school and writing on the blackboard "I will not be a pottymouth, I will not be a pottymouth..."

But I do want to ask: what is the "sounds like a bell" reference about?

it's ejecta [ecch] from the riddle thread, undoubtedly.

dung!

-ron obvious

Perhaps "sounds like a bell" should be "rings like a bell" which could be rhyming slang for "stinks like hell".

the droppings of an English cricketer, obviously.
the fall out of a nuclear scientist
the .. no I'll stop right there
Rod

As The Professor and the Madman pointed out-- dog= "pure"

In past years, before a "poop and scoop" law-- we always used to look out for glass on the street -- once a friend replied-- I don't see any glass-- but why didn't you warn me about the dog s***? D'oh!

Sheep -- Dag (daggy?) from the song--

here we are in NSW, shearing sheep as big as whales,
with leather necks and daggy tails...

dag... maybe. let's wait for help from <ahem> down under

Dag, a lock of wool that hangs at the tail of a sheep and draggles in the dirt. Dag-wool, refuse wool; cut off in trimming the sheep.

An elephant meets a rabbit for the first time– he admires the rabbits beautiful white fur, and asks, enviously, "Do you have a problem with s*** sticking to your fine hair?

The rabbit says, "My fine hair is fur, and no, I do not!"

At which point, the elephant picks up the rabbit, and uses it to wipe himself and comments, "I do!"

I have heard-- but forget-- but there is a special word for rabbits.. (pellets?)

" here we are in NSW, shearing sheep as big as whales,
with leather necks and daggy tails.."

I have seen a lot of sheep, but never one with a tail. All the ones I ever saw had an elastic put around tail at base to shut off circulation and make tail drop off when they were lambs. Can it be the Kiwis can't afford elastics?
(Joke - no offence intended. Maybe they have so many they think it is too much work.)

::sigh::

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_287b.html

[if you're so inclined, there's a Poop Thesaurus hanging out there...]

Alex, you can go home now---but work on that penmanship,
will you?

Dags are typically a combination of faeces and wool which adorn the rear ends of sheep which are in bad need of crutching (this is cutting the wool off around their backsides).

Occasionally a sheep will be missed during a muster and will not be shorn for a year. By the next summer, they have long streamers of daggy wool hanging around their rear ends. These dry out in the sun, and start knocking against each other when the sheep move, making a kind of clacking sound. This gets more audible as the sheep moves faster. From this phenomenon comes the term "rattle your dags", meaning, "get a move on" or "move faster".

And virgin wool comes from the sheep that run the fastest.

As many of you know (especially you bio scholars Hi Jackie!), my non-Board name is Dagny. Over the years, many have opted to shorten it to "Dag".

Suddenly I find myself not so fond of that anymore, if you can imagine...

[Ignorance was bliss e]

And virgin wool comes from the sheep that run the fastest.
Ohmigawd! And if the ewes are running too fast, could you say the others are rampaging??

virgin wool

When synthetic fibers first hit the market (about 1948) I distinctly recall a tag that bragged the garment was made of "Virgin Nylon"

"Virgin Nylon"

She was the oldest of the Vestal Virgins of Rome.

"Virgin Nylon"

No, no, no, see, that's where it was made. Except I thought that name was always in plural...

Which reminds me of the old poem, "Caviar from the Virgin Sturgeon"

Alex asks
what is the "sounds like a bell" reference about?

I actually got it from Monty Python. The answer is, as tsuwm points out, dung .

Bingley

OK. I've resisted long enough. Here's one version of the ubiquitous bear joke:

In light of the rising frequency of bear-human encounters, the National Park Service is advising hikers to take extra precautions. The Service suggests that hikers remain on the trails and wear little bells on their clothing, so as not to startle bears that are not expecting them. The service also suggests that outdoorsmen carry pepper spray with them in case of an encounter with a bear.

It is also a good idea to watch for fresh signs of bear activity. Outdoorsmen should recognize the difference between black bear and grizzly bear dung. Black bear dung is smaller and contains lots of berries and sometimes squirrel fur. Grizzly bear dung is larger, has little bells in it and smells like pepper.

my non-Board name is Dagny

Uh, yeah, I'm sure my husband (whose name happens to be Dag, which has a perfectly nice meaning in Norwegian!) will also be thrilled to hear the latest on his (oft-abused) name...

why didn't you warn me about the dog s***?

The word "shit" has been used as an expletive for many years, and through over use has lessened in its intensity and shock value. It is also used quite widely as a term for general mess, and in several other phrases. However, its use as a term for excrement seems to have a higher intensity and is eschewed (No - I already saw that joke, thank you) - in polite company. Hence I have heard a polite lady state "Oh shit! I just stepped in some doggy doo-doo".
Is there a name for this process? Can you think of some other examples? I'm not trying to trawl the gutter, just trying to explore this phenomenon.

Rod

But the group would have be surprised if she said: "Oh, doo-doo! I've stepped in some dog shit!" Maybe she followed a fundamental lesson in style, that repetition of one word in the same sentence is bad form And she was not one of those imperturbable types who wouldn't say if if they had a mouth full.

As an avid morel shrooner, I am always amused when I encounter what my sisters and I refer to as the "Deer John". It is a semi-hollowed tree full of deer droppings that looks like they just back up and let it drop. I often imagine a group of deer standing in line to use the facility and gossiping and crossing their legs.

consuelo

Dear consuelo: Trees such as you describe cannot be common, which might explain why I have never seen or heard of deer doing that. I wonder why they do that, what advantage there is to it, unless it prevents the biting flies from attacking sensitive areas.

Consuelo is an avid morel shrooner. Should I be or or ?

Bingley

Dear Bingley: Forget morels and truffles until you acquire a trained French truffle hound.

...what my sisters and I refer to as the "Deer John".

Give a whole new meaning to a Deer John letter.

And, if the deer has (looks like umlaut) a whole new meaning to the advertising slogan of the people that make the tractor: Nothing Runs Like a Deer(e).

And coming back to the beginings-- i was reminded yesterday-- (a US holiday) the worms have "castings"

This is such a wonderful thread-- until it started i hadn't realize i knew so many names for different types of excretement! -- and now i know even more! (i knew frass, guano, castings, pure, scat, (did we use scat yet? ) Bears make scat.

And nice old ladies who don't know what the word means tell stray dogs or cats to "scat."Actually, a common country practice was to catch strays and smear them with excerement to punish owners who let them stray.

a common country practice was to catch strays and smear them with excrement*

AHD lists both (in separate entries) as Origin Unknown. This time I *will look it up in my OED!
And while you're at it Dr. Bill, you might consider expunging the word dirt from your vocabulary. Not to mention moist.


*According to ledasdottir, this would only work with bear excrement. (http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=miscellany&Number=32928)

well-- i am not sure it only goes with bears-- I have only heard it (i think?) with bears..

and until this thread started, i never even realize i knew these words.. and so far we hav avoided humans-- i taught my kids BM (bowel movement)

" Dr. Bill, you might consider expunging the word dirt from your vocabulary. Not to mention
moist."

Dear Faldage: No bowdlerizer I. I meant that nice old ladies that used to use it would have been upset if someone told them what "scat" meant. Like my wife's grandmother who primly corrected me for saying the word "bull". She informed me that that was "a gentleman cow."

Then there is the children's book "Everyone Poops" ....

In the same vein, somewhat...

how did a toilet come to be known as a crapola? I understand the 'crap' part but the 'ola' is a mystery to me.

"how did a toilet come to be known as a crapola? I understand the 'crap' part but the 'ola' is a mystery to me."

Victrola, Motorola,payola,Crayola all coinages using a meaningless suffix for completion.

Shrooner: a person that spends inordinate amounts of time in the woods each year trying to find the elusive morel mushroom. Also has more luck finding spoor, wildflowers, wild leeks and reaffirmation of ties to wood nymphs.

consuelo

Just to get a moment's respite from excrements....

ConsueloI have not tasted morel mushrooms. I dream of tasting it someday. I am interested to know what beautiful words you will use to describe its taste and if you can contrast it with Portobellos and the ubiquitous white mushrooms from Pennsylvania caves.

(I hope I don't get stoned with the hardest dung there is, for going off-thread)

chronist

The first thing for anyone planning to eat any kind of mushrooms found in the wild to do is get a good book to learn to identify them, and eat only ones they can be sure they have properly identified. Even experts have been poisoned by errors in identification of mushrooms. The puffballs etc. are so far as I know easier to identify. I prefer to buy mine. It is safer.

Shrooner: a person that spends inordinate amounts of time in the woods each year trying to find the elusive morel mushroom. Also has more luck finding spoor, wildflowers, wild leeks and reaffirmation of ties to wood nymphs.

[irony]And yet, I had a big batch of morels spring up in my front flower bed. And I hate mushrooms.[/irony]

nice old ladies who don't know what the word means tell stray dogs or cats to "scat."

OED suggests ss + cat suggesting a sibilant hiss (are there any other kinds?) followed by a shouted "cat".

OED suffers from fecal impaction.

[irony]And yet, I had a big batch of morels spring up in my front flower bed. And I hate mushrooms.[/irony]

Sparteye, where do you live? The way they talk about morels, it might be worth a plane ticket to where you live to get those morels!



chronist

Just a county away from consuelo, wordcrazy. In the wilds of mid-Michigan. [still-looking-for-the-missing-UP-on-CK's-map emoticon]

[still-looking-for-the-missing-UP-on-CK's-map emoticon]

I was wondering about that myself and thought perhaps it had seceded as part of the ND name change flaff that degenerated into the joining of North Dakota and South Dakota after ND's rejection of my Baja Manitoba proposal and the division of Michigan and Upper Michigan to keep the number of stars on the flag the same. [scratching-my-head-because-even-*I-don't-understand-what-I-just-said emoticon]

I have only just discovered this thread - the posting that I have made in "Holy Buckets may have been more apposite here!

But the "crap" part of "crappola" is generally thought to derive from a Mr Henry Crapper, who did not invent the water closet, but did produce the first reasonably practical one that was capable of being produced in quantity and fitted into existing houses without undue problems.
(Actually, that's not entirely true - the early W/Cs had all sorts of sanitary problems until a certain amount of expertise in fitting them and connecting them to the sewerage had been acquired - but that's another story - - -)

Last year a friend, who regularly wanders around in the bush, gave us a bunch of morels because they picked so many they didn't know what to do with them. They figured they'd picked about $600 worth of mushrooms, but since they do it all the time, it was no big deal to them...they just didn't want to waste them!

Apparently in Newfoundland, wild mushrooms of all sorts are plentiful. I haven't gotten around to finding someone to take me out mushroom-hunting. Blueberries grow like a carpet on all the hills here...yum yum!

<<and reaffirmation of ties to wood nymphs>>

Are you sure it's *morels you're gathering?

How 'bout the "presidentials" of a Bush?

A new word (well, new to me anyway)I came across yesterday was homocoprophagous, used of a species whose members eat each other's droppings. Does heterocoprophagous exist for animals which eat another species' droppings?

Bingley

I don't know about hetero-, but auto-coprophagous warrants an entry in OED2.

http://members.aol.com/tsuwm/

or Birds nest soup-- made from the gelatious fish flavored lining of a sea tern nest the bird digests, and then regurgated fish, and lines its nest with the geliten for the fledglings..

the nests are harvested, and the lining made into a soup.. pretty gross when you think about it.. but it taste good.

but a lot of food is that way-- discusting to think about, glorious to eat -- Figs have that aspect too-- any botonist here to explain how figs flowers get fertilized and mature into figs? Yummy!

Why add "coprophagous" when "scatophagous" already exists?

P.S. "h" crucified again. Thanks, Faldage.

cophrophagous

AHA! That's where that h went. You put that back in dipthong this minute, Dr. Bill! Shame on you for stealing it!

Phaldage, don't be mean to Pooh - no one'll notice the dipherence

Can the previous few posts be applied to "h" droppings as well?

H's droppings at least do not ring like a bell. More like sound of frog returning to its liquid environment.

I was talking to my father this weekend about the "Deer John". He says it isn't deer that do it, dear, it's porcupine! Oh, well, it was a good story while it lasted.

I'm glad I resurrected this post. What with my daughter's wedding and my computer going belly up, I hadn't had a chance to get back till now. How do morels taste, I'm asked. They taste like Pan romped through the forest with the nymphs and wrapped them all up in autumn leaves. I wish I had some now. They are a wild thing, not to be compared to portobello or white ones from the grocer.

I have in my possession a copy of a letter to the editor of the Rocky Mountain News that I wrote some time back. There had been a near-disastrous forest fire near Mesa Verde, in SW Colorado, and there was some concern that the fire had destroyed a certain pre-historic site. After the ashes cooled investigators found that what was burning at the site was a very large pile of rodent droppings. I asked in my letter if it was too late to protect the site under the Endangered Feces Act.

TEd

After that I'll just scat on out of here.

>Also has more luck finding spoor, wildflowers, wild leeks

Which is what the deer are doing at that tree!

>Apparently in Newfoundland, wild mushrooms of all sorts are plentiful.

Sheesh, in my youth, we used to seek wild morels ALL the time. Oh, wait, never mind....

the Endangered Feces Act.
After that I'll just scat on out of here.
G-R-O-A-N!!!!! Ted, c'mere a minute, I've got something for you...

They taste like Pan romped through the forest with the nymphs and wrapped them all up in autumn leaves.

A fellow mushroom-lover salutes you for that wonderful imagery, consuelo!

Thank you, Whit. May I call you Whit? I can't take all the credit. I've been infected by poetry AND Tom Robbins.