A Brief History Of Poop

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In the comments page of my last post, the discussion turned to poop.

Well, to the word 'poop', that is.

An explanation was offered for just where poop comes from. And, as it turns out, poop has a long, established, and honorable history aboard sailing vessels.

The word 'poop', that is.

Contrary to what many believe, the poop deck of old sailing ships had nothing to do with pooping. One may have gotten pooped on the poop deck, but one did not poop on the poop deck.

And you may not be surprised to learn that we get poop from the French.

The word 'poop', that is.

I don't know why it is, but when the English are at a loss for the perfect word to use for something, more often than not they look to the French for inspiration.

And so it was with poop.

Well, poupe, actually, which is the French word for the stern of a ship, as one of my readers en provence was kind enough to point out.

Apparently, the English and the French have been giving each other poop for years. So, when the English were adding officers' cabins at the stern of their ships and needed a name for the deck above those cabins, they looked to the French and the first thing they thought of was poop.

The poop deck was born.

In time, taking waves from astern on the poop deck came to be known as 'getting pooped'. And, if you happened to be the English officer standing on the poop deck while getting thoroughly pooped, the first words you would probably have uttered would have been, "Oh, poop!"

In more time, swabbies became so used to hearing "Poop!" emanating from the officers on the poop deck, that any information percolating down from on high in the naval service came to be known as 'poop'.

If this information was circulated in written form, it was said to be contained in a 'poop sheet'

So the poop we originally got from the French and that was passed down to us from English naval officers is the sheet we have to deal with today.

I could go on.

But I'm pooped.

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