A little while ago I had thought that I might write a post about toilets. They are so good! Often they’re comfortable and it’s excellent to have such a quick and easy way of transporting away from us our unpleasantries. I looked up Wikipedia and discovered that toilets go way back, even to 2500BC. Not of course the toilets that we know today. I then remembered the story of Thomas Crapper being the inventor of the flush toilet and that being where the colloquial name for it comes from. I decided not to write a post about toilets that day.
More recently I saw the name Thomas Crapper again. I’m sure the men haven’t noticed but some women will have seen that Libra publishes “Odd Spots” on its sanitary items; just a little trivia while you’re sitting on the loo. This Odd Spot claimed Thomas Crapper as the inventor of the flush toilet. So I decided that I really needed to look this up and see whether it’s true. Surprise surprise, it’s not! :O How will I ever believe Libra again?!
Anyway, it turns out that the flush toilet was probably invented by Sir John Harington in 1596, with Alexander Cummings’ 1775 coming up with the more modern version. Thomas Crapper was a plumber who founded his own company and was a strong advocate for sanitary plumbing. He provided princes and kings of England with bathroom fixtures and his fame was most likely blown out of proportion by the fictional and satirical book Flushed With Pride: The Story of Thomas Crapper by Wallace Reyburn.
As for poo being referred to as crap the toilet being the crapper. the word crap has been around a lot longer than Thomas Crapper. It means something like discards or dregs, the bits that you don’t want and throw away. It’s origins may include the word for chaff (discards of wheat harvesting), the Middle English of chaff being crappe and the Late Latin being crappa.
Whatever the truth of this matter is, kudos to those that have worked throughout history to bring us toilets as we know them today.
Haha, it was just a matter of time that someone posted something about toilets. Pretty good write there Kris. Somehow or rather there is ALWAYS a lot to talk about poo, toilets and bathrooms huh – good party talk :party:. As for Mr. Thomas Crapper – I could just imagine him being teased as a kid in school – but he did have the last laugh in inventing the flush – but somehow “flushing crap” doesn’t sound like something to brag about too much.
Opps… i missed the part of it being false. Selective reading – I hate when I do that! ;| So Crapper didn’t actually invent the flushing crapper. However, somehow crapper means toilet but the origin is unknown. Somehow, I still feel sorry for him. :shrug: