With writing of The natural history of dung well underway, I am obviously alert to every instance of excrement in the news. The trouble is that journalists seem not to be able to bring themselves to mention it without falling back on the infantile term ‘poo’. Here are some examples:
BA flight forced to land early because of smelly poo, BBC News, 16 March 2015
UK’s first poo bus goes into regular service, The Guardian, 15 March 2015
Posh village terrorised by poo bomber, Mirror, 16 March 2015
Campaign to stop pet owners leaving dog poo on the streets of Darlington, Northern Echo
Dog poo drops lead to blindness and £4K fines, Buckingham Advertiser
Let’s get this straight, ‘poo’ is in the same league as ‘plop-plops’, ‘number twos’ and ‘big jobs’ — zero gravitas, but maximum simpering coy nonsense.
The word is ‘dung’. And if this is no good, then faeces (feces even), excrement, sewage, stool, scat, droppings, or ordure are also available.
And don’t even think about turd, shit or crap; expletives are equally pathetic.
It’s dung.
Dung is not a four-letter word. Well, it is, but you know what I mean.
Richard Jones
Bugman Jones 