Conference thebay::joyoflex

    G'day,
     from one place I went to,
    
    
    
    
    
      Olivia Newton and Elton....

    I've heard conflicting stories:
    
    1. Derived from the inventor (of what, the flush toilet?) John Crapper.
    2. Derived from the first president to possess one, John Quincy Adams.
    
    Personally, having been named John, I prefer #2 and frequently insist
    that we ought to say "Excuse me. I have to go to the quincy."

    I enjoy the rare opportunities to help give birth to new words, so
    followed the advice in .2 from Mr. Skelly when in need of a bathroom
    while driving my car.  There were no public facilities or out-of-sight
    bushes or trees available, so I knocked on a few doors and asked if I
    could use their quincy.  Must have been a poor neighborhood; there
    weren't any.
    
    Good thing I only wanted to brush my teeth.  Whatever your middle name,
    let's leave well enough alone, John.

    I always said that my brothers are "The Toity Twins", one is named
    Jon (John) and the other is Lew (Loo).
    
    BjD

    re .2,
    
    Am I just thick or do you seriously want me to believe the flush toilet
    is nicknamed 'john' after its inventor, the esteemed Mr. John Crapper.
    
    I mean, 'Crapper', come on...
    
    ( please say its true... this kills me )
    
    /Jeff
    

    In a book published a few years ago on the history of the toilet, the 
    device was said to have been invented in Victorian England by one
    Thomas Crapper.  The book is titled _Flushed with Pride_.
    
    Bernie        

    Historians who have investigated this have found that there was indeed
    a plumber named Thomas Crapper who was in London at about that time.
    They are divided, though, on the claim that he "invented" the moderrn
    flush toilet.
    
    (I qualify that because there were many flush toilets before the
    Victorian era. In the Elizabethan era, a nobleman invented one, and
    became extremely unpopular. There's a good write-up in "Dirt, A Social
    History as Seen through the Uses and Abuses of Dirt." I can't remember
    the author or publisher.
    
    	Jon

    Further investigation should lead you to the conclusion that Thomas
    Crapper did not invent the flush toilet.
    
    What he invented was the cistern in which a rising bell creates a
    siphon and starts the water flow into the toilet.
    
    Nick

	Crap -- Middle English, residue from rendered fat, from Old
	French "crappe," chaff, residue, from Latin "crappa"

	John -- from the name "John," circa 1932 (that's all they say)

    Webster's Third International (1966) lists 6 different entries for
    this word.  The noun is
    
    crap, ME from Middle Dutch _crap_, _crappe_ pork chop, greaves,
    grain in chaff, from _crappen_, to tear or break off.  1. dial.
    English: residue from rendered fat -- usually used in plu. 2.
    archaic slang: money. 3a: excrement -- usually considered vulgar. 
    3b. defecation -- usually considered vulgar.  4 slang: something
    deceitful, useless, or empty: nonsense, rubbish.
    
    There's also the verb _crap_, crap as a dialectical variation of
    _crop_,  crap as slang for the gallows in Britain (derived from
    _krape_, a clamp for torturing, from Gk. _krapo_), and the game
    craps, no derivation given.  All senses in use from approximately
    the 18th century.  
    
    Given what [little] I know of the derivation of English personal
    names, I'd hazard a guess that Mr. Crapper's name (which isn't
    listed as a current British name in my surnames dictionary)
    probably derives from the profession of renderer -- the person who
    stews up the animal fat that would later be used in things like
    candles.  A smelly, nasty profession.  
    
    The dictionary of Slang and Euphemism (ed. Richard A. Spears)
    lists the use of _john_ as slang for a w.c. dating from the early
    1900's, but as slang for the outhouse or privy from the 1600's. 
    _John_ and its diminuatives is also slang for the male member. 
    I'd probably get myself into trouble if I tried to go into any
    more detail about the probable connections . . . 
    
    --bonnie

    If you visit Blists Hill Museum site at Ironbridge you can see a
    cast iron lavatory cystern with Mr. Crapper's company name on it.

    I'm elling it with due recpect: the local slang sounds as:
    "I go and see Sir Winsdton Churcill"...