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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><a href="http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi846.htm">http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi846.htm</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>As promised, we continue our discourse on toilets. We
often associate metaphors and toilets. Wasted effort goes “down the
toilet”. Negative press or social faux pas metaphorically finds one
‘in the toilet.’ Although ‘toilet’ is often substituted
with some other, more colorful, word, the meaning is the same. Think on
it and you will catch my drift.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>So what does this have to do with history? Well, seems
like we’ve made the same sorts of associations for a long while.
Flip side is the toilet, or more specifically, the “flush” part,
did not start out with a negative connotation, just the opposite. In
Period, it was considered a metaphor for a clean spirit. Our notion of
this comes via one John Harington, inventor, poet, trouble maker to the Court,
humorist, and godson to Queen Elizabeth I.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Harington’s book on toilets appears to be as much
social commentary as it is a discourse on the mechanical design of the flush
toilet. Harington plays with double meaning and literary allusion to
emphasize his concerns for obscenity and hypocrisy, both serious social issues
for the Renaissance Era. Much in the vein of which we started here, he
hints toward the same “in the pot” meanings, with jabs at courtly
excesses, and the aristocracy, but in the end he uses his metaphor slightly different.
Essentially he says, ‘all will be sweet and clean after the flush’.
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>And somewhere in there, he also describes two of the three
essential elements of the modern flush toilet.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I’m certain it is an enthralling read. Call me
when you are done with it.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Take a listen,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Regards,<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>dsd<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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