General Question

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17 Answers

xxporkxsodaxx's avatar

Pennsylvania University

xxporkxsodaxx's avatar

1) It’s a shortened term for puteo, which is Latin for ‘to stink, be redolent, or smell bad.’

2) It’s actually spelled “piu,” but is often pronounced as “pee-yew”. It’s root is the Indo-European word “pu,” meaning to rot or decay. A lot of other languages use this root word and have the same general meaning.”

Randy's avatar

Perfect underpants. Very important, am I right?

jballou's avatar

@xxporkxsodaxx There’s no “Pennsylvania University” only University of Pennsylvania, which is only abbreviated UPenn, never PU. I should know, I went there. :)

xxporkxsodaxx's avatar

Haha I know, it’s from one of those old Hanna-Barbara Cartoons.

ccatron's avatar

Purdue University or maybe Punjab University in India

syz's avatar

In medical terminology, it stands for polyuria, meaning producing large volumes of urine. PU/PD means drinking a lot, peeing a lot.

eambos's avatar

Polyurethane. Esp. If refering to the soles of shoes. I.E. “400 nbs PU sole.”

AstroChuck's avatar

Phelix Unger.

Knotmyday's avatar

Palpable Undercurrent.
of sarcasm

kapuerajam's avatar

pooping unicorn

AstroChuck's avatar

Phluther Universe.

JackAdams's avatar

A poem:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
If skunks had a college,
They’d call it P U.

August 23, 2008, 1:28 PM EDT

aeschylus's avatar

I agree with xxxporkx, but I would like to add that it most likely came into English through the French verb “puer,” which means, “to stink.” All of the present tense forms of the verb have a similar sound to the English usage, as opposed to the Latin, which has the “t” in all the common forms (puteo, for instance, being the present active first person singular form of the verb).

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