RICCARDO TERZO

Dear The Curmudgeon's Agony Aunt

I find myself using words  like 'shit' and 'crap' a lot. I did this in a comment on your previous post using Latin. This embarrasses me but I get pleasure from saying the words.  I translate the words and expressions into, usually, Italian to disguise them but am aware that other people suspect and are probably using Google to translate them back into English.

I also obsess a bit about my toilet regimen and feel compelled to mention what I'm doing in my morning blogs with this taking precedence over other daily routines like making a cup of coffee or throwing the old lady next door's newspaper up into a tree.

Is there something wrong with me?

- Richard (of RBB).

Dear Ricard (snigger - sorry), what you are referring to is a problem and yes, there is something wrong with you. The problem goes by the name of scatology. My dictionary defines this as:

       noun

1. the study of or preoccupation with excrement or obscenity.
2. obscenity, especially words or humour referring to excrement.
3. the study of fossil excrement.

While distasteful, if you were to only stick to this (two horrible puns there) then I can't see there being too much of a problem except for the fact that you will not make any new friends and probably alienate the ones you have, if any.

The broader problem is if you were to develop any deeper (an adjectival pun there) disorders like coprophilia or worse, scatophilia. I'm disinclined to go into detail on these disorders as they are rather horrible and take your scatology into more deviant areas.  You can look this up on the internet but, take care. What you do in the privacy of your own home of course is your business  but let me say this: be glad that you aren't a dog with coprophilia as then you would be eating your own, and strangers', shit.

Have you heard of the 'Dorian Gray effect'? Sociologists and psychologists believe that names produce a Dorian Gray effect, influencing personality, how we're perceived, and even physical appearance. In Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian Gray never ages while his portrait in the attic does. 

Some names have stronger effects than others. With yours, unfortunately, your parents did not do enough due diligence and so were (hopefully) unaware that the name  'Richard' has a scatological connection. Have you heard of the cockney rhyming slang 'Richard The Third'? This rhymes with turd and lower classes of people refer to someone doing a 'Richard The Third' or, in its shortened form, doing a 'Richard'. 

Richard; faeces. Not the most flattering way to remember Richard the Third. "Look out for the Richard on the sidewalk".

No doubt somewhere in your past you have become aware of this either directly or subliminally and it forms the basis of your now emerging obsession. This is unfortunate but, there you go. Get over it.