# Origin of "the runs"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-runs/152534>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 3, 2003, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-runs/152534 "2003-02-03T17:22:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rhinostylee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bc79bd/32.png) [@rhinostylee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhinostylee)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-runs/152534/1 "2003-02-03T17:22:06Z")

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Sorry, this is in poor taste. Does this reference the fact that one with “the runs” must run to the bathroom, or is a consistency issue (i.e. “runny”). Just curious. Someone in here must know.

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**Author:** ![garius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e19b73/32.png) [@garius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garius)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-runs/152534/2 "2003-02-03T17:37:27Z")

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it could possibly be a combination of both…

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**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-runs/152534/3 "2003-02-03T17:46:05Z")

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Interesting question. Unfortunately I cannot answer it. There is, however, a similar Swedish dialectal word **rännaskit/a** with a similar meaning, and when I look the word **ränna** up I find that it not only is equivalent to eng. **run**. It can also have the meaning of **flow** , so my guess is that it has to do with the consistency. The lexicon I looked it up in also mentions a couple of synonyms.

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**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-runs/152534/4 "2003-02-03T18:12:06Z")

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Just had to be **Floater** to make a reply on a subjecy like this 🙂

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**Author:** ![Iteki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eada6e/32.png) [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-runs/152534/5 "2003-02-03T18:56:08Z")

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Considering that this state is also called “the trots” (as in trotting back and forth to the little dopers room) I would guess the origin is from that, with “runs” having the witty double-connotation.

An Irish specialist in post-gallectomy-belly-problems wrote a paper entitled (roughly) “Post Colisystectimal Diarreha - A Running Commentary”… I would love to know if it was deliberate.

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**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2003, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-runs/152534/6 "2003-02-03T20:35:28Z")

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The vulgar English term could simply be a translation of the more clinical, Greek-derived _diarrhea_, which literally means “running through”. Given the “through”, it’s more likely that this latter term refers to the feces rather than to the act of running to the bathroom.

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**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2003, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-runs/152534/7 "2003-02-04T04:34:36Z")

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My favorite quote ever from a textbook: “If diarrhea is the runs, dysentery is the squirts.”

Medical microbiology was a fun class.