The Word Biffy for a Portable Toilet

Grant, a few weeks ago on our show, we were discussing the word biffy, remember, meaning a kind of toilet or outhouse or port-a-potty.

That prompted quite a few emails, including this one from Larry Christie of Oceanside, California.

Larry writes, I was born at a midwife’s home while a raging January blizzard was in full force at Pierre, South Dakota. Thank you, Grant, the capital of the state.

On his family’s farm, they used biffy to mean, quote, an outdoor or indoor toilet, whether it was a two-holer or a flushable pot. A catalog was our toilet tissue.

One did not dally in the middle of a raging blizzard and below zero temperatures. Often stripes of snow had to be brushed away from the seat that came through the cracks between the boards of the wall. Brrrr.

Several other listeners wrote with suggested etymologies for the word biffy. Some of you suggested that biffy is an acronym that stands for Bathroom in the Forest for You. No, almost certainly not. No.

Others pointed out that there’s a brand of port-a-potty marked with BFI in big white letters, standing for Brown Ferris Industries, which is a waste management company, although I think that they have their hands in a lot of other businesses as well. Thanks for that.

However, the problem with BFI is that I haven’t found proof that that company was in the portable toilet business before 1942. 1942 is when we first find biffy used in print.

Also, the term biffy seems more common in the Upper Midwest, and BFI does business everywhere, and I think they’re based in Texas. If you’ve got information that shows that BFI was in the portable toilet business before 1942, let me know.

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