James in San Diego, California, wonders about the origin of the word sploot, which refers to the way cute cuddly animals, such as corgis, lie on their bellies with their back legs splayed out. Other terms for this include frog legs, frog dog, furry turkey, drumsticks, turkey legs, chicken legs, Supermanning, pancaking, flying squirrel, and frogging. The origins of sploot are murky, although it may be connected with splat. There’s a whole subreddit for all your splooting needs. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Pets Go Sploot”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
My name is James Howitt. I’m in San Diego.
Hi, James. Welcome to the show. What’s up?
I had called in with a question about a strange verb, splute, that I’ve heard used in reference to the position that corgis or other dogs take that looks like Superman lying on the floor.
And I wanted to know the origins, derivation of this word, splute.
And James, how are you spelling splute?
S-P-L-O-O-T.
Okay.
And when you say they’re in a Superman pose, what do you mean exactly?
I mean with their forelimbs and back legs, it was stretched out forwards and backwards lying on the floor.
Often on cold tile or a cool surface.
Where did you find Splu?
Where did you run across it?
I’ve heard it used, and then I remember a friend of ours.
Who was a corgi owner used it in a sentence, and that this was the name or the word for this pose.
So they’re on their bellies, and their legs are back behind them, sort of like frog legs, right?
Exactly.
Yeah, and actually frog legs is one of the terms that families often use for their pets when they take this pose.
Yeah, or frog dog.
Frog dog or frogging.
There’s a whole bunch of terms for it.
But in around 2010, 2011, splute kind of came onto the scene, kind of has really showed up in all that cutesy animal language.
The origins are murky.
James, I don’t think I’m going to be able to give you an origin story for it.
I believe it has reference to something that looks like it went splat in order to get there, like a soft tomato when you put it down.
It spreads out.
Okay.
So that’s the best guess that I have of the origins.
But all the other, it’s weird that it kind of pushed these other terms out.
I know it from the Splute subreddit.
I don’t know if you’ve been there.
Plenty of cute animals.
It’s particularly associated with corgis, like you mentioned.
It comes up earliest and first and most often with corgis, and then eventually spreads to other breeds of dog and other kinds of animals.
So I thought the splut, the SPL part, I thought of splay, like kind of splaying it, splaying out.
The splat I can also see.
The oot part, I didn’t have a particular good explanation in my own head except to sort of verbify it.
And it rhymes with cute.
Other terms for it, drumsticks are turkey legs, chicken legs, furry turkey, supermanning, pancaking.
Flying squirrel was a common one for a long time before it kind of got pushed out by sploot.
Any corgi owner knows what we’re talking about.
They sploot.
They lie down with their little fuzzy butts up and their paws out and they’re adorable.
Yeah.
Cats, too.
Yeah.
Plenty of cats splooting.
Particularly when I’ve seen squirrel pictures of squirrels that are splooting.
Bunny splooting.
So, James, that’s most that we know.
Thanks for the question.
I really appreciate a chance to think about cute animals.
All right.
Thanks a lot.
Take care.
All right.
Thanks, James.
Bye-bye.
Have a good one.
Bye-bye.
