Editing Thomas Crapper (section)

==Origin of the word "crap"==
It has often been claimed in popular culture that the vulgar slang term for human [[feces|bodily waste]], ''[[wiktionary:crap|crap]]'', originated with Thomas Crapper because of his association with lavatories. A common version of this story is that [[Doughboy|American servicemen]] stationed in England during [[World War I]] saw his name on cisterns and used it as Army slang, i.e., "I'm going to the crapper".<ref name="World Wide Words">{{citation |url=http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-cra1.htm |title=World Wide Words |access-date=11 April 2010 |archive-date=7 April 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100407161136/http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-cra1.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

The word ''crap'' is actually of [[Middle English]] origin and predates its application to bodily waste. Its most likely etymological origin is a combination of two older words: the [[Dutch language|Dutch]] ''krappen'' (to pluck off, cut off, or separate) and the [[Old French]] ''crappe'' (siftings, waste or rejected matter, from the [[medieval Latin]] ''crappa'').<ref name="World Wide Words"/> In English, it was used to refer to chaff and also to weeds or other rubbish. Its first recorded application to bodily waste, according to the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'', appeared in 1846, 10 years after Crapper was born, under a reference to a ''crapping ken,'' or a privy, where ''ken'' means a house.<ref name="World Wide Words"/>