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Toilet humour

Toilet humour is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Toilet humour rather than just read about it. In short: Toilet humour is a type of off-colour humour dealing with: defecation (including diarrhoea and constipation), in which case it is called scatological humour (compare scatology); urination; flatulence, in which case it is called flatulence humour; or, to a lesser extent, vomiting and other bodily functions. Toilet humour is commonly an interest of toddlers and young children, for whom cultural taboos related to ackno…

Toilet humour — main illustration
Toilet humour — illustration

Key takeaways

  • Toilet humour belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
  • Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
  • Connect Toilet humour to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
  • Reproduce the core statement of Toilet humour from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Toilet humour is a type of off-colour humour dealing with: defecation (including diarrhoea and constipation), in which case it is called scatological humour (compare scatology); urination; flatulence, in which case it is called flatulence humour; or, to a lesser extent, vomiting and other bodily functions. Toilet humour is commonly an interest of toddlers and young children, for whom cultural taboos related to acknowledgement of waste excretion still have a degree of novelty. The humour comes from the rejection of such taboos, and is a part of modern culture.

Music Toilet humour is sometimes found in song and rhyme, particularly schoolboy songs. Examples of this are found in Mozart and scatology, and variants of the German folk schoolboys' song known as the Scheiße-Lied (English: "Shit-Song") which is indexed in the German Volksliederarchiv. A children's Spanish musical duo, Enrique y Ana, made a song called "Caca Culo Pedo Pis", which literally translates to "Poop Butt Fart Pee". Detroit rapper Eminem famously utilises crude humour throughout his discography. His most notorious example of toilet humour was featured on the 2017 album Revival, where he raps "Your booty is heavy duty, like diarrhoea", a line which received extensive lament from critics. The Los Angeles Times comments: "If Hannibal Lecter could have recorded a rap album, this would have been it. Brilliant, sinister, scatological and a parent's nightmare." Czech goregrind band Gutalax, along with some grindcore bands uses cloaca humour as its primary musical themes.

Performance Paul Oldfield, who performed under the name Mr. Methane, performed a stage act that included him farting the notes of music. Joseph Pujol, who performed under the name Le Pétomane (French for "fart maniac"), performed a similar stage act for the Paris music hall scene. The American comedy duo Tim & Eric have made numerous comedy sketches based around toilet humour. For example, they have made fake commercials for non-existent products such as the "Poop Tube" (a device that lets people release liquefied faecal matter into a urinal while standing up), the "fla'Hat" (a hat that is connected to the wearer's anus which expands when storing flatulence), and "D-Pants" (an undergarment invented by "Diah Riha-Jones" that captures "uncontrollable diarrhoea"). In the series South Park, the Canadian comedy duo Terrance and Phillip are noted for toilet humour and often make comedic use of their flatulence e.g. in the song "Uncle Fucker". English actor Adrian Edmondson, who appeared in many shows utilising toilet humour, is quoted as saying, "Toilet humour is like jazz: everybody has an idea what it is, and most people don't like it. But the people who do like it are fervent about it and like it until they die."

Books In 1929 comedian Charles "Chic" Sale published a small book, The Specialist, which was a large "underground" success. Its entire premise centred on sales of outhouses, touting the advantages of one kind or another, and labelling them in "technical" terms such as "one-holers", "two-holers", etc. Over a million copies were sold. In 1931 his monologue "I'm a Specialist" was made into a hit record (Victor 22859) by recording artist Frank Crumit (music by Nels Bitterman). As memorialised in the "Outhouse Wall of Fame", the term "Chic Sale" became a rural slang synonym for privies, an appropriation of Mr. Sale's name that he personally considered unfortunate. More recently, one of the most popular books about defecation, diarrhoea and accidents in toilets is by straight-talking physician Jane Wilson-Howarth, a guide that began as Shitting Pretty and then was relaunched as How to Shit around the World. The famous Russian literary satirist Vladimir Voinovich included toilet humour to criticise food policies in the Soviet Union. His novel Moscow 2042 (1987) presents a negative utopia in which a fictional communist government recycles faeces to create food for common citizens while the powerful eat proper food. In Voinovich's previous novel Life and Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin (1969/ 1975), a farmer experiments with urine and faeces and brews vodka out of excrement. The children's book series Captain Underpants makes copious use of toilet humour. "Doctor Diaper", "The Bionic Booger Boy", and "Professor Pippy Pee-Pee Poopypants" are among the villains in the series.

Video games A game notorious for its juvenile humour, Conker's Bad Fur Day contains a plentiful amount of scatological jokes. One of the landmark areas is a "Poo Mountain" and some of its missions involve getting cows to drink a laxative prune juice to produce "pooballs", or fighting The Great Mighty Poo, a giant opera-singing pile of faeces as a boss. In a later mission, the game's protagonist also has urination as an attack, after drinking a lot of beer and getting drunk. Toilet humour is also versatile in the Metal Gear franchise. Solid Snake can protect himself from wolf attacks by having one urinate on him. In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Raiden can spot soldiers relieving themselves several times and also stand under them. In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Raiden is instructed in order to use a terminal, he first needs to "take a DOOMP", which is an abbreviation for "digital-optical output mounted proxy". Kojima's later game Death Stranding included a mechanic allowing the player character to urinate in the field, as well as urinate or defecate in his room's bathroom, where his bodily output can be processed into grenades of types "number 1" and "number 2". A trait of Wario from the eponymous Mario spin-off franchise is a powerful flatulence attack extensively used in his Super Smash Bros. appearance.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Toilet humour: From a series of woodcuts (1545) usually referred to as the Papstspotbilder or Papstspottbilder in German or Depictions of the Papacy in English,[1] by Lucas Cranach, commissioned by Martin Luther.[2] Title: Kissing the Pope's Feet.[a] German peasants respond to a papal bull of Pope Paul III. Caption reads: "Don't frighten us, Pope, with your ban, and don't be such a furious man. Otherwise we shall turn around and show you our rears."[b][3]
From a series of woodcuts (1545) usually referred to as the Papstspotbilder or Papstspottbilder in German or Depictions of the Papacy in English,[1] by Lucas Cranach, commissioned by Martin Luther.[2] Title: Kissing the Pope's Feet.[a] German peasants respond to a papal bull of Pope Paul III. Caption reads: "Don't frighten us, Pope, with your ban, and don't be such a furious man. Otherwise we shall turn around and show you our rears."[b][3]
Toilet humour illustration

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Toilet humour

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Toilet humour claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Toilet humour before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Toilet humour ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Toilet humour

In research
Toilet humour appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry
Engineering practice reuses Toilet humour in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom
Toilet humour is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Euphemisms, Humour, Toilets, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life
Look for Toilet humour outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.
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How to study Toilet humour in 20 minutes

  1. Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
  2. Close the page and write down what Toilet humour means in your own words.
  3. Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
  4. Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
  5. Explain Toilet humour out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Toilet humour in simple terms?

Toilet humour is a type of off-colour humour dealing with: defecation (including diarrhoea and constipation), in which case it is called scatological humour (compare scatology); urination; flatulence, in which case it is called flatulence humour; or, to a lesser extent, vomiting and other bodily fu…

Why does Toilet humour matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Toilet humour?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Toilet humour.

Tags

  • Euphemisms
  • Humour
  • Toilets
  • Vomiting

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