FACT CHECK: DO BEARS SHIT IN THE WOODS?
The Official Up Yours! Fact Checking Team
Up Yours! fact checkers have looked into the validity of the often-used phrase, “Does a bear shit in the woods?” According to a multi-million-dollar study at Harvard, linguistic specialists have determined this claim is:
Herbert Uptite, one of the linguistics professors paid by your tax dollars to study bears in the wild, confirmed that, “Bears definitely have a language they themselves understand.” He demonstrated several obvious differences between human communication and bear communication, alternating between basic human vocabulary and a series of grunts and growls. “It’s clear bears do not use English words such as ‘shit,’ and therefore can’t consciously shit in the woods.”
Uptite’s boss, Dr. Gretchen Crank, clarified. “While we can describe the action we believe to have in common with bears, referred to callously and quite offensively as ‘shitting,’ it is more appropriate to ask, ‘Do bears defecate in the woods?’”
The Harvard linguistics professors ran exhaustive tests on specimens they witnessed evacuating an area of the observed bears assumed to be their anuses, using all five sense to come to what they believe is a scientific conclusion—the bears produce something that could be identified as ‘shit,’ but stress that ‘stool’ would also be a more socially acceptable term when discussing the phenomenon.
“The academic community is dedicated to making the world a more polite place for both humans and bears,” said Dr. Crank. “It’s important that we respect the bears’ possible distaste for profanity and refrain from using the word ‘shit’ when referring to their scatological activities.”
