Why is, um, fecal matter brown?
Is it my imagination, or was this article orignally entitled, “Why is shit brown?” Was it bowdlerized by the addition of [fecal matter] in brackets? And wasn’t it originally from a wag who thought he could slip one by ol’ Cecil by signing himself Billy Rubin?
I only remember that article because it was the one that prompted me to start reading Cecil’s books, and eventually frequent these boards.
Fear Itself, you are quite correct. I went and got my copy of More of the Straight Dope. I went to the index and looked up Shit. It says:
shit, why brown: 381-82
I turn to 381 and sure enough, the question asked by Dave is, “Why is shit brown?”
I recall from decades back there’s also some question submitted by Billy Rubin, which would be related here … but all I could find was a broken link.
I saw the title of this thread and thought “Oh yeah, that was the question from Billy Rubin!”
The column was first posted online during our days with AOL, which frowned on excessively frank discussion. The process of unbowdlerization remains incomplete.
Heck, I thought this was going to be a thread about grapheme → color synesthesia.
Same here - come to find it’s all just a load of crap.