# Things that infuriate you well beyond their actual importance **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 4, 2024, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712 "2024-09-04T02:18:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 51
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1001 "2024-12-24T21:17:44Z")
> [@Strenger](#): > > In vehicular traffic. How exactly does one “forget” to use one’s turn signal? That is easy, the other two are caused by being a jerk, not by memory issues. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1002 "2024-12-24T21:42:03Z")
> [@Strenger](#): > > That’s why one would have to say something like “Who left an actual pile of fucking crap, like as in shit, as in someone actually took a fucking dump, in the middle of the room?” See, that’s exactly when “shit” and “crap” are unhelpful. Because a pile of unsorted mail might be described as “shit” or “crap” in my household. And the answer to “who left the poop on the floor?” is almost certainly one of the cats. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > What on earth is wrong with “feces”, “dung”, or “manure”; “coprolites” or “human waste” when one of those is relevant; or if you’ve absolutely got to even “BM”? Feces would be okay, but sounds kind of formal to me. I use “dung” and “manure” to describe the waste of livestock, especially vegetarian livestock. Coprolites are rocks, fossilized shit, not actual stinky stuff i need to remove before someone steps in it. And I’d be really shocked if the wastes were human, not feline. Poop is perfect. If “poo” didn’t sound so juvenile, it would be fine, too. Both are explicit, and only used to describe literal feces. If the poop is outdoors, and especially if it might have been left by a wild animal, i might say, “scat”. My father, the gastroenterologist, used to say “BM”. But that bothers me grammatically when used as a noun, and always sounded like a weird euphemism to me, even as a kid. And i guess i only use that for humans, although i suppose cats move their bowels, too. But it would both be on lots of levels if my husband saw some cat shit on the floor and asked, “who left this BM here?” Lol, i never expected to write to extensively about the grammar of shit. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1003 "2024-12-24T21:44:47Z")
> [@Strenger](#): > > “pet dander” That’s loose fur, not poop. > [@Strenger](#): > > Just say “stool” if one must. And since we have a stool that lives in the kitchen, that would be confusing. It’s okay if the context is clear, though. > [@Strenger](#): > > Poop deck. Poop Deck Pappy. I’ve heard of a poop deck, but never had any rain to use the term. (And I’m not certain exactly what part of the ship it is.) I’ve never even heard of “poop deck pappy”. But talk about juvenile speech? “Pappy”? ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1004 "2024-12-24T21:48:06Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Feces would be okay, but sounds kind of formal to me. I use “dung” and “manure” to describe the waste of livestock, especially vegetarian livestock. Coprolites are rocks, fossilized shit, not actual stinky stuff i need to remove before someone steps in it. I have seen “poop” in news stories about coprolites, and about livestock shit, and about the shit of non-livestock non-humans; as well as about the shit of humans. Feces is indeed slightly formal but again I’m talking about news stories, not about casual conversation. It doesn’t bother me as much in casual conversation; if adults want to sound childish in casual conversation, that’s up to them. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1005 "2024-12-24T21:50:39Z")
Well, coprolites are fossilized poop, so it makes sense they’d be in the same news story. In formal writing, I’d probably use “feces”, not “poop”. But if someone left the stuff on my kitchen floor, I’m probably complaining about the poop. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1006 "2024-12-24T21:52:27Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > coprolites are fossilized poop, so it makes sense they’d be in the same news story. They were called poop in the news story. Which is just silly. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1007 "2024-12-24T22:04:45Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > > [@Strenger](#): > > > > Just say “stool” if one must. > > And since we have a stool that lives in the kitchen, that would be confusing. I still remember how weird I found it when, as a child, I first heard someone refer to poop by a word that I, until then, had only ever heard associated with a type of furniture. ---
**Author:** ![Strenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@Strenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strenger)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1008 "2024-12-24T22:11:56Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > See, that’s exactly when “shit” and “crap” are unhelpful. Because a pile of unsorted mail might be described as “shit” or “crap” in my household. Yes. That’s why one needs all of the intensifiers in the sample I demonstrated. “Actually fucking shit, like some asshole took a dump on the floor!” It rarely comes up in conversation. However, the word “poop” itself is a regular feature in all kinds of printed matter. Beyond all reason. I stand by that it is a babycuteism which has extremely limited uses, and I object very strongly to being exposed to this kind of language on what is likely every day. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1009 "2024-12-24T22:13:12Z")
There was the time when an employee had phoned us, the safety department, in distress from a restroom stall where he sat naked and sweating while blocked up with a massive, packed stool. For the mandatory incident report I relied on my trusty medical dictionary, which had an article listing the proper names of material, bolus to stool; from mastication through defecation (although given the awesomeness of his obstruction and his relief at having been delivered of it with the epsom salt tea we’d handed in to him, defecation = deification - it was a pagan totem of a turd). “Employee was able to perform the passage of his bowels satisfactorily and return to work.” As an (ostensibly) professional, I tried to face the absurd with the straightest of faces, though I suspect this only enhanced it. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1010 "2024-12-24T22:46:15Z")
> [@Strenger](#): > > “Actually fucking shit, like some asshole took a dump on the floor!” > > It rarely comes up in conversation. You obviously don’t have pets. 😆 I really don’t need to blow a gasket like that just because a cat has diarrhea, or a turd was stuck to his fur and didn’t drop off until it got to the kitchen floor. > [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > As an (ostensibly) professional, I tried to face the absurd with the straightest of faces, though I suspect this only enhanced it. That’s an awesome story. Poor guy. ---
**Author:** ![Strenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@Strenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strenger)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1011 "2024-12-24T22:49:28Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > That’s an awesome story. Poor guy. TIL that epsom salts can be taken per os to relieve bowel obstruction. And that is the straight poop. See? See how much cackhanded sinistry about words has impoverished the language of the English? Exactly. Used to be a perfectly fine word, and now it just means shit by those who presumably are writing to adult audiences. C’est de la merde. Et bien ça m’emmerde. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2024, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1012 "2024-12-25T01:06:56Z")
This conversation is a load of bull. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2024, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1013 "2024-12-25T01:37:19Z")
Nightsoil? (A word for feces we only agree on if it’s collected by a gong-farmer and spread on the fields by hand; by anarcho-syndicatists or others) However, after modern waste treatment, most human feces is converted to safe fertilizer. So… nightsoil? Back to the Brits: “soil” for feces (foeces) _My word, I’ve soiled myself!_ Like being “sick.” _I awoke in a puddle of my own sick._ (Although waking from communal sick is also a thing.) And finally, returning to the handy desktop medical dictionary, if you loose your bladder you’re incontinent. If you loose your bowels you’re involuntary. “Happy. I couldn’t _“_ more involuntary,” A sign that the nursing profession has degraded is evident with the nurse asking “did you poop?” when 30 years ago it was “did you have a BM?” When I was a hospice volunteer back then, at a staff meeting the call nurse reported how she had to clean up a patient who’d messed himself while his primary-caregiving family all stood there yelling at him and each other. “I felt bad for the poor guy, covered with stool.” Somehow that showed more respect for the patient’s dignity to say “stool,” even if he wasn’t even there when she used that word instead of shit or poop. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2024, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1014 "2024-12-25T01:45:43Z")
Huh, I’ve heard people discuss both bladder and bowel incontinence. I asked my family about words for literal shit. My husband said he’d say “feces”, my daughter (in her 30s) said poop. Both agreed they wouldn’t say “shit”, both because it’s rude and also because “shit” is usually used metaphorically, so you wouldn’t think the person was talking about actual shit. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2024, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1015 "2024-12-25T02:27:10Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I’ve heard of a poop deck, but never had any rain to use the term. (And I’m not certain exactly what part of the ship it is.) I’ve never even heard of “poop deck pappy”. But talk about juvenile speech? “ A poop deck is in the rear of a ship, over the cabin. Poop Deck Pappy was a Popeye character, his father actually. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > I really don’t need to blow a gasket like that just because a cat has diarrhea, or a turd was stuck to his fur and didn’t drop off until it got to the kitchen floor. Yep, you know you are a dedicated cat owner when you step in something squishy and think- “I hope that was a hairball”. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2024, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1016 "2024-12-25T02:27:28Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Both agreed they wouldn’t say “shit”, both because it’s rude and also because “shit” is usually used metaphorically How come it’s too rude to say “shit” if you’re talking about shit, and not too rude to say “shit” if you’re using it metaphorically? I agree that there are contexts in which it could be confusing – “why is there shit all over the living room floor?”. (This is where the word “literal” would be useful, if its usefulness hadn’t been destroyed by misuse.) But a) the sort of context in which I’m seeing “poop” in news stories wouldn’t be confusing and b) I already said that I can understand why they’re not using “shit” in a news story; but there are certainly available terms that don’t sound like a three year old wrote them, or like the person writing them thinks their readers are primarily three year olds. ---
**Author:** ![actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/actualliberalnotoneofthose)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2024, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1017 "2024-12-25T17:31:04Z")
I understand a lot of posters here make it a point of pride to declare “I only use and accept the language of old white men.” I’m a middle-aged white man myself, but I don’t think having a general awareness of culture outside an old white man bubble is a negative thing. ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2024, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1018 "2024-12-25T17:57:07Z")
Did I miss somebody citing Monty Python? “What’s brown and sounds like a bell?” “Dung!” ---
**Author:** ![Strenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@Strenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strenger)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2024, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1019 "2024-12-27T05:05:19Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > b) I already said that I can understand why they’re not using “shit” in a news story; but there are certainly available terms that don’t sound like a three year old wrote them, or like the person writing them thinks their readers are primarily three year olds. Had to quote to express support for not just truth, but the concise expression of that truth. That was my initial point, but here it is expressed better. No. Adults do not say “poop” or “poo.” Except when speaking at children, or maybe _about_ them. The point is decided. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > How come it’s too rude to say “shit” if you’re talking about shit, and not too rude to say “shit” if you’re using it metaphorically? Yet another nail in the coffin of this babycuteism. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2024, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712/1020 "2024-12-27T05:14:38Z")
> [@Strenger](#): > > No. Adults do not say “poop” or “poo.” Except when speaking at children, or maybe _about_ them. The point is decided. Well, several adult here do use “poop” to talk about their pets stuff. So, nope , not decided. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712.md?page=50) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-infuriate-you-well-beyond-their-actual-importance/1006712.md?page=52)