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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary
From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: origin of "crap"
Message-ID: <829@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 2-Dec-85 13:38:03 EST
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.829
Posted: Mon Dec  2 13:38:03 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Dec-85 12:43:18 EST
References: <521@klipper.UUCP> <76@nbs-amrf.UUCP> <331@steinmetz.UUCP> <767@rtech.UUCP>
Reply-To: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady)
Organization: Duke U Comp Ctr
Lines: 26
Summary: Crapper not a hoax?

In article <767@rtech.UUCP> jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) writes:
>Someone once wrote a book called "Flushed With Pride", which claimed that the
>inventor of the flush toilet was a man named "Thomas Crapper", and that the
>word "crap" was derived from his name.  Although the book was a hoax . . .
>--
>Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
>{amdahl, sun}!rtech!jeff
>{ucbvax, decvax}!mtxinu!rtech!jeff

You'd think _Flushed with Pride_ would *have* to be a hoax, but...  I
keep hearing otherwise!  I have even seen it claimed that Crapper
received a patent, and that the company he founded still exists.  Does
anyone have any solid (pardon the expression) evidence one way or the
other?  I've been wondering about this for a long time.

By the way, if you have ever heard that Fillmore was the first US
president to put a bathtub in the White House (leading to a public
outcry over the expense) that definitely WAS a hoax which its author
(HL Mencken) tried for years to undo.  But, amazingly enough, there was
at least one alligator found in the New York city sewers (I have copy of
the clipping at home).  You can't go by what sounds plausible...
-- 
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-3695
USENET:  {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary