Why are there so many synonyms for poop?

I don’t usually go around discussing poop.

That might have changed forever, though, once I stumbled upon smellypoop.com, a site dedicated to disseminating information about . . . well, poop.  Smellypoop.com is a refreshingly frank site presenting “solid” information on a subject that simultaneously compels and repels. 

For example, smellypoop.com addresses each of the following topics (as well as others):

  • What is poop made of?
  • Why does poop stink?
  • Why is bird poop white?
  • Are there people who eat poop?
  • Why does some poop float?
  • What Happens When I’m At WORK and I have to Poop? 

But there’s more.  Smellypoop.com provides comprehensive research on the topic of farts. You can order fake poop and poop-themed greeting cards at the site (click on “Order Fake Poop and Other Great Gifts”).  There is a poop forum and a poop photo gallery.   You’ll find poop poems, poop riddles, and poop sayings, including “Never kick a fresh turd on a hot day” (attributed to Harry S Truman).

What especially interests me, though, is the comprehensive list of poop synonyms at smellypoop.com.  There are hundreds of them.  Though I was already aware of dozens of poop terms (including the classic four-letter reference and oldie-but-goodie “number two”), I was woefully unaware of the vast number of poop synonyms.  Thanks to stinkypoop.com, my repertoire now includes terms like “blind eels,” “bootycakes,” “colon cobras,” “dookie-doop-droop” “mooky-stinks,” and the quaint but useful “pooplets.”

Why so many synonyms for a basic bodily function, I wondered?  Then it hit me: …

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Sticky Superstitions

A week or two ago, Erich provided a link to a page entitled, “Why Won’t God Heal Amputees?”. The site has a number of excellent videos, among them a 10-minute short that equates prayer with any other form of superstition. If not equal in terms of dogmatic obedience, prayer and superstition at least share the same degree of efficacy: absolutely none whatsoever. So why do superstitions form, and in spite of their pointlessness, stick?

For some background, let’s rewind to the 1940’s. In this decade B.F. Skinner, the psychologist who essentially founded behaviorism, conducted the most groundbreaking studies on behavioral conditioning this side of Pavlov’s salivating dogs. Even if you can’t recite his findings from rote-memory like a Psych 101 student, you know some of the terminology his studies created- positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and the concept of “behavioral conditioning” itself.

Not as well known, Skinner’s research on pigeons also suggested one way superstitious behavior comes into practice. Skinner placed some of his infamous pigeons in a cage attached to a mechanism that delivered food at a totally random interval. The birds soon began to associate their own behavior with the food delivery, and kept repeating whatever they had done at the time food entered the cage, as though this would initiate more food.

The conditioning led to a variety of bizarre bird “superstitions”. Skinner reported birds that “turned counter-clockwise about the cage”; “thrust [their heads] into one of the upper corners of the cage”; and …

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You May Have It Cockeyed If…

Science cannot disprove the existence of god. I have heard this claim made so often and by such a broad spectrum of people that I rarely really think about it. But is that the end of it? Science is concerned with materialism ( in a philosophic sense) and does best…

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If the aim of terrorists is to terrify, then why do Republicans help them do it?

I think we all know the answer to this question already, so I won't belabor the point, other then to refer you folks to this Cato report, which gives an excellent discussion about the risks of terrorism, and how they have been grossly inflated -- by politicians to garner our votes…

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Who leaves better clues, God or the Devil?

Here's a Question I Like To Ask when arguing biblical accuracy versus scientific discovery: Postulating an omnipotent God and his potent yet subordinate nemesis: Which has the power to influence the minds of a few men to compose a persuasive text and create a regional following, and which to deposit…

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