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"
