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Recently, a local student in a conversation with a biology TA was baffled as to whether it was most appropriate to refer to the liquid byproduct of metabolism as “piss,” “pee,” or “urine.”
“To start off, we were having a casual conversation, and we weren’t really talking about class material anymore. I was telling him a story from my weekend,” said BIOL 0100 student Brian Chang, hands sweating from the stress of his predicament. “And I was saying how I had to use the bathroom at this party, but there was a massive line. Except I had no clue how to describe it.”
“See, I could say I had to piss. It was a fairly casual conversation, and he’s only a TA,” continued Chang, certain nobody had ever seen a problem of this magnitude before. “Except he was on the clock because he was holding office hours. So I should get a little more formal, maybe say ‘pee.’”
“But maybe ‘pee’ isn’t formal enough. See, this wasn’t an undergrad TA. He’s a PhD student, so I should use some respect and say I had to urinate, to show him how smart I am,” Chang went on. “But, he’s just a first-year PhD. And, like, he entered this program right out of college, so he’s only 23. And I’m 21. Two-year age gap? That’s a piss-gap. I could say ‘piss,’ and that would show him that I see us as equals and that I still see him as youthful and virile.”
“That was my thought process. By the time I said anything, it all came out jumbled, so I said ‘puriniss,’” said Chang, who seemed now about to faint. “I think the portmanteau still worked because it conveyed multiple meanings at once.”
At press time, Chang was having difficulty deciding between calling sexual intercourse “boning” or “banging.”
