I walked on toward Ploughwright, thinking about feces. What a lot we had found out about the prehistoric past from the study of fossilized dung of long-vanished animals. A miraculous thing, really; a recovery from the past from what was carelessly rejected. And in the Middle Ages, how concerned people who lived close to the world of nature were with the feces of animals. And what a variety of names they had for them: the Crotels of a Hare, the Friants of a Boar, the Spraints of an Otter, the Werderobe of a Badger, the Waggying of a Fox, the Fumets of a Deer. Surely there might be some words for the material so near to the heart of Ozy Froats [an academic studying feces] than shit? What about the Problems of a President, the Backward Passes of a Footballer, the Deferrals of a Dean, the Odd Volumes of a Librarian, the Footnotes of a Ph.D., the Low Grades of a Freshman, the Anxieties of an Untenured Professor? -- Robertson Da

I walked on toward Ploughwright, thinking about feces. What a lot we

had found out about the prehistoric past from the study of fossilized

dung of long-vanished animals. A miraculous thing, really; a recovery

from the past from what was carelessly rejected. And in the Middle

Ages, how concerned people who lived close to the world of nature were

with the feces of animals. And what a variety of names they had for

them: the Crotels of a Hare, the Friants of a Boar, the Spraints of

an Otter, the Werderobe of a Badger, the Waggying of a Fox, the Fumets

of a Deer. Surely there might be some words for the material so near

to the heart of Ozy Froats [an academic studying feces] than shit?

What about the Problems of a President, the Backward Passes of a

Footballer, the Deferrals of a Dean, the Odd Volumes of a Librarian,

the Footnotes of a Ph.D., the Low Grades of a Freshman, the Anxieties

of an Untenured Professor?

-- Robertson Davies, "The Rebel Angels"



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