{"id":1985,"date":"2010-08-09T10:00:03","date_gmt":"2010-08-09T17:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=1985"},"modified":"2013-08-02T19:36:28","modified_gmt":"2013-08-03T02:36:28","slug":"why-the-toilet-is-sometimes-called-a-john","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2010\/08\/why-the-toilet-is-sometimes-called-a-john\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Toilet is Sometimes Called a \u201cJohn\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sir<\/a>

Sir John Harington<\/p><\/div>\n

Today I found out<\/a> why the toilet is sometimes called a “John”.<\/p>\n

The term is thought to derive from Sir John Harrington or, at the least, to have been popularized due to Harrington. (There are a few references of the toilet being called “Cousin John”, as well as many references to it being called “Jake” and other such generic names, before Harrington was born; but it is generally agreed that why we now call it “John” is because of Harrington and not from the old “Cousin John”).<\/p>\n

Sir John Harrington lived in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. \u00a0Harrington was one of the 102 god-children of Queen Elizabeth I, known as the “Saucy Godson”, for his proclivity to write somewhat\u00a0risqu\u00e9\u00a0poetry and other writings, which often got him\u00a0banished\u00a0only to be allowed to return again sometime later.<\/p>\n

Along with writing\u00a0several\u00a0notable works, Harrington also devised Britain’s first flushing toilet, which he called the “Ajax”. \u00a0This derived from the term “Jakes”, which was a slang term for what we now call a toilet.<\/p>\n

Shortly thereafter, Harrington wrote one of his more famous and popular works titled “A New Discourse upon a Stale Subject: The Metamorphosis of Ajax”. \u00a0This, on the surface, was about his new invention, but more to the point was a political allegory on the “stercus” (excrement) that was poisoning the state. \u00a0The book itself got him banished from the court for a time due to its allusions to the Earl of Leicester. \u00a0However, the actual flushing toilet device itself was real and was installed in his home and later one was made for the queen around 1596. \u00a0The device worked by pulling a cord that would allow water to rush in from the “water closet”, which would flush away the waste.<\/p>\n

Although Harrington wasn’t by any means the first to invent a flushing toilet (there are references to flushing toilets going all the way back to around 2600 BC), his invention was an innovation in Britain at the time and it was commonly thought that he was the inventor of the flushing toilet, which is why it is thought the flushing toilet today is often also called a “John”.<\/p>\n

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