For those of us who burrow in similar holes trying to produce easier-to-
understood language to explain health information, one place we find ourselves
provincially tongue tied is when discussing any and all things
scatological.
excrement stool
secretions solid bathroom waste
bowels waste
defecation crap
The committees we’ve convened to decide how to say what we mean are
legend.
Ebola has us at it again.
“Ebola
then spreads in the community through human-to-human transmission, with
infection resulting from direct contact (through broken skin or mucous
membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of
infected people, and indirect contact with environments contaminated with such
fluids.”
And in their Q/A they state:
“Infection
occurs from direct contact through broken skin or mucous membranes with the
blood, or other bodily fluids or secretions (stool, urine, saliva, semen) of
infected people.”
A few days ago a talented colleague who strives to communicate health clearly
to a broad national audience shared a statement her organization had settled
on:
“You can
get Ebola by touching the vomit, blood, spit, sweat, pee, or poop of someone
who is sick with or died from Ebola.”
YES! Finally The frankness, the downright
street worthiness of that word “poop.”
Ah, but
over that second cup of coffee, when my linguistic component kicks in - which is it
–
Poo or Poop?
Isn’t poop
more used as the verb.
As in, mother to child, Did you poop?
And isn’t poo more the noun. “Did you have a lot of poo?”
Bottom line – which is more
appropriate to use for understandability.
Would poop offend less than poo?
A dictionary search shed little light.
MacMillan Dictionary reports thus:
the
act
of
passing
waste
from
your
body
when
you
go
to
the
bathroom.
This
word
is
used
especially
by
and
to
children.”
The OED doesn’t list the word “poo” but places poop’s origin in the
1930s and define it as “to defecate” as in “take a poop”.
A wasteful linguistic exercise? Not really.
I’m more than curious about this specific word choice.
Which do people prefer?
Is there a chance some readers/listeners would be
offended? Think we’re being
infantilizing?
Do we care if the result is that the larger public gets the message?