How come when you eat corn, no matter how much you chew it, you poop it out in whole kernals?
(Question submitted by Timzx)
Corn poop is one of the greatest mysteries in life. I grew up pondering the same question. This is what I think is happening:
When we chew corn, the outer coating slips off the inner kernal. This outer yellow coating is almost entirely cellulose, and is indigestible. It passes through the gut untouched, and emerges looking like a whole kernal, although it is mostly just the outer skin. The inside of the kernal is starchy and digestible, and that is the part that we succeed in chewing up.
Is there any way to prevent corn from getting in your poop?
(Question submitted by Steve)
I know of only one way - don't eat corn!
How does poop stay together, like in links?
(Question submitted by Blink182 Girl)
In humans, soft poop is really one long, mostly continuous sausage before it comes out. It gets its "link" look because we tend to pinch off lengths of it with the anal sphincter as the poop emerges. If a person pinches hard enough, the poop separates into several turd units. If the person doesn't pinch that hard, the turds may stay connected.
If you can remain sufficiently relaxed, you can produce an awesomely long poop that will coil up inside the toilet.
Why does some poop float?
(Question submitted by High Rise)
Floaters are turds that have an unusually high gas content. Sometimes the gases produced by bacteria in our gut don't have a chance to collect into a large fart bubble, but remain dispersed in the feces. The poop then comes out foamy, and has a lower density than water. Poop with a high fat content will also float.
What causes the burning sensation sometimes associated with poop?
(Question submitted by torrance crump)
This is generally caused by a recent meal of hot peppers or related spices. The oils associated with these foods remain intact and active all the way through one's gastrointestinal system. These oils can also generate hot farts.
Why does some poop hurt when it comes out?
(Question submitted by Rwinger01)
Turds can get very large and dry if a person is constipated, causing painful stretching of the anal opening. Pooping can also hurt if the person has hemorrhoids. Hemorrhoids are engorged veins in the anal area. A doctor once described them to me as "varicose veins of the anus," which suggests that the valves in the veins that are supposed to keep the blood flowing in the right direction have gotten messed up. Pooping can also be painful if the person suffers from an anal fissure, a tear in the tissue of the rectum.
Why does poop sometimes fizzle like Alka Seltzer when it hits the water?
(Question submitted by Penelope B.)
Fizzling can happen if the poop is supercharged with bubbles of fart gas. After discharge from the body, the poop is in a lower pressure environment and it degasses.
Does eating meat make your poop smell worse?
(Question submitted by MAE5158)
Yes, meat protein is rich in sulfides, resulting in smellier farts and poop. This is the reason that the poop of carnivores such as dogs, cats and snakes smells worse than the poop of herbivores such as cows and horses.
Is it possible to vomit poop?
It is not possible unless the person is suffering from some extremely rare condition or disorder. I had a roommate once whose summer job was to administer barium enemas to patients in a hospital. She told me that one patient vomited the enema.
Is it possible for a man to have poop come out of his penis, or for a woman to poop out of her vaginal opening?
(Question submitted by Booby Poop, Jr. and LaysTatoChips222)
Not normally; fortunately the plumbing of the genitalia is entirely separate from the plumbing of the digestive system! However, there are certain pathological situations that can cause the pipes to get connected together wrong. Cancer can do it, as can surgical diversions of the human tubing. Such fistulas, as they are called, can cause feces to come out of the urinary system, or urine to come out of the anus.
Where can I purchase fake poop?
You can buy three different varieties of prosthetic poop at the FartMart!
What other remarkable poop products are out there?
The amazing Turd Twister is a novelty product designed to permit the user to extrude sculpted poop. Check it out by clicking on this banner:
Turd Twister
Can you blow up a toilet by throwing a cigarette into it after pooping?
(Question submitted by msiddi)
This sounds like urban legend to me. It would take a heck of a lot of hydrogen to explode a toilet in this manner, and intestinal gases just don't have that much. Also, any flame would just flare up briefly. With an open toilet, you couldn't get up enough pressure to pop the pot!
"Why did you make a website about something as yucky as poop?"
(Question submitted by Maggpie2001 and many others)
Well... it all started many years ago when I was a graduate student in Buffalo, New York, and my roommate and I started writing down all the synonyms we could think of for poop, farts, and other bodily products, functions and parts. We called our collection "The Nether Thesaurus" and we went around showing it to people and collecting more words. This is a continuation of the poop part of that.
Then some linguists saw The Nether Thesaurus and said it was a valuable resource for linguistic analysis. Now, I'm not a linguist except as an amateur, so if any of you are linguistics professionals, feel free to analyze these lists! Just let me know what you discover.
Then I started collecting those fun rhymes that kids make up on the playground, and called the collection "Kiddie Scats." The relevant part of that collection is included here, too.
As for the questions, people have a lot of natural curiosity about bodily functions.
And then there's the undeniable fact that poop is funny! It smells funny, it sounds funny coming out, and it's dirty, private, and stinky, which makes it even funnier.
And I guess that's why I made a website about poop!
What is the origin of the word "poop"?
(Question submitted by Screechr86)
According to Eric Partridge in his excellent book of word origins (Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English), "poop" comes from the Middle English word poupen or popen, and it originally meant "fart." The word was based on the sound of a fart. According to Robert Chapman, author of American Slang, "poop" came into use with its current meaning around 1900.
How come people say "I'm gonna go take a dump"? when in reality they are leaving a dump?
(Question submitted by Jonathan)
Yes, that is one of the English language's more peculiar expressions. My hypothesis is that the experience of pooping is so pleasant that although we are leaving a dump, we are gaining pleasure and satisfaction. Perhaps it developed as an analog to "taking a break," during which time one also "takes a dump."
And here is the real explanation from an anonymous linguistics professor: "I can tell you that the reason we say 'take a shit/dump' is for the same reason we 'take' a vacation...in this situation, the nouns poop/dump or shit are used to describe an activity occuring over a time, not the actual physical object itself. One is 'taking' the time to leave a shit in a bowl. actually the use of the word dump really reflects how much we subconsciously understand this action, as one's ass is dumping the ass apples into the bowl. the word has simply been changed to a noun to denote the time spent during evactuation of the bowels."
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