Talk

Flip

Pedants' corner

I need to complain about the Mumsnet email for 21-month-olds and their misspelling of POO

7 replies

castille · 24/04/2008 12:03

There are dozens of mentions of pooh and poohing.

Pooh is a bear. Poohing is pottering about Hundred Acre Wood with Piglet humming Hums.

Bother.

OP posts:

Thanks

Report

MargaretMountford · 24/04/2008 13:18

best have a smackerel of hunny to cheer you up

Thanks

Report

PixelHerder · 27/04/2008 13:49

oh god yes - I was off to start this thread myself, am glad I'm not the only one. It's twee and irritating.

Sadly it seems to be popular as an alternative spelling, I have a baby book in which the nappy-changing section is annoyingly littered with 'pooh'.

Bah to pooh!

Thanks

Report

Twiglett · 27/04/2008 13:51

OMgoodG .. standards are slipping terribly aren't they?

Thanks

Report

PixelHerder · 27/04/2008 18:24

PS The article was v helpful though, thanks!

Thanks

Report

maidamess · 27/04/2008 18:28

Well, I ALWAYS spell it pooh. So ya booh sucks to yooh.

Thanks

Report

singersgirl · 27/04/2008 18:33

Well, this topic has come up before here. You all of course know that 'pooh' is the original spelling and the relatively recent variant 'poo' is not even given as an alternative in my 1991 Collins dictionary, as I said in that post. Note too this link.

I've seen it suggested that the 'poo' spelling derives from the American 'poop', but it is not standard British English spelling.

So sorry to outpedant pedants but you are all wrong. Mwah hah hah hah hah .

(I'll insert here the caveat about language constantly developing and changing etc...)

Thanks

Report

PixelHerder · 27/04/2008 18:51

Ah, there you go then, thoroughly outpedanted.

My dictionary features neither poo nor pooh in relation to faeces, so I thought both were slang. 'Pooh' just seems cringey and wrong for some reason. May I propose 'shite' as an official alternative?