What is the origin of saying “P.U.” when there is a foul smell in the air? Is it an acronym for something?
Nothing really. It mimics a sound.
Great question gutterhippo! I think it must go deeper than that, Reeder; what sound would it be mimicking? I think this is one for Cecil.
Look up phew. P.U. is an exaggeration of phew.
Phew is pronouced fyoo, so wouldn’t a contraction of that be “FU” or “Fee-yoo?” I think there must be another source.
From here.
A childen’s chant that I recall: “P.U. spells phew, and that’s you.”
This web page traces it back to Sanskrit:
http://hinduwebsite.com/general/sanskrit_english.htm
This one makes not of the PIE root **pu[/], meaning “rot, stink”
http://www.etymonline.com/p11etym.htm
This appears to be a very ancient word.
:smack:
Make that *pu.
:o
Old pre-adolescent joke:
Confucious say: Man who fart in church sit in own pew.
Pepe le Peu, the cartoon skunk, is presumably a variation on the same word.
It comes from “Purdue University” and is based on the delicious “aromas” that waft over Lafayette and West Lafayette, sometimes on a daily basis.
Pungently Unpleasant.
In common usage, “phew” morphs into “pew,” as demonstrated by the jokes mentioned by CookingWithGas and Ardine (though interestingly, my dictionary doesn’t list this meaning for “pew”). Saying “pew” in an exaggerated fashion is essentially the same as saying “P U.”
perhpaps an abbreviation for those who couldn’t spell “pungent”