Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Poo(p)

I was googling about various digestive-related things, and, since Google generally knows what I need and I don't always act like a grownup when no one is watching, I was phrasing my queries very childishly.  For example, "How long does it take food to turn into poo?"  (Answer: an average of 2 days)

I soon noticed that Google's autocomplete was always using phrases that contained the word "poop", not "poo". For example, if you type "My poo is" into Google, you'll get a drop down full of autocompletes saying "My poop is" every colour of the rainbow.

People who have done more research than me suggest that "poop" is USian, and "poo" is more British.  A site:.ca google (which, I realize, is not the most precise research method ever) gives 298,000 hits for "poo" and 198,000 for "poop", so it seems that "poo" is more preferred in Canada.

However, even if you go to google.co.uk, the autocomplete still suggests "poop" when you type in "poo".  "Poop" also turns up in the google.fr and google.pl autocompletes. (Google.de and google.es retain "poo".)

Which one do you use?

5 comments:

Poodle said...

I say "poo"!

Lorraine said...

What is this, the Dr. Oz show? Everyone I know calls it shit.

impudent strumpet said...

@ Lorraine: What did you call it when you were a little kid and were too young to say "shit" (at least in front of the grownups)?

Lorraine said...

Oh, you just had to ask. Poopie.

laura k said...

In my house, we say poop. And we say it a lot, because we pick up dog poop and monitor the status of our dogs' poops. We never say poo and we never refer to the dogs' solid waste as shit.

For me, shit is more of an exclamation, an expression of regret or surprise or what have you. The waste stuff is called poop.

And "poo", for me, is a gentler exclamation. Like, "Oh, poo" instead of "Shit!"