Toilet paper is a soft tissue paper product primarily used to maintain personal hygiene after human defecation or urination. It is typically sold as a long strip of perforated paper wrapped around a cardboard core, to be stored in a dispenser adjacent to a toilet. Most modern toilet paper in the developed world is designed to decompose in septic tanks, whereas some other bathroom and facial tissues are not. Toilet paper can be one-, two- or three-ply, or even thicker, meaning that it is either a single sheet or multiple sheets placed back-to-back to make it thicker, softer, stronger and more absorbent.
The use of paper for such hygiene purposes has been recorded in China in the 6th century, with specifically manufactured toilet paper being mass produced in the 14th century. Modern commercial toilet paper originated in the 19th century, with a patent for roll-based dispensers being made in 1883.
Different names, euphemisms and slang terms are used for toilet paper in countries around the world, including "bumf," "bum wad," "loo roll/paper," "bog roll," "toilet roll," "dunny roll/paper," "bathroom/toilet tissue," "TP," "arsewipe," and just "tissue."
Read more about Toilet Paper: History, Description, Mechanics
Famous quotes containing the words toilet and/or paper:
“Mothers born on relief have their babies on relief. Nothingness, truly, seems to be the condition of these New York people.... They are nomads going from one rooming house to another, looking for a toilet that functions.”
—Elizabeth Hardwick (b. 1916)
“Two heavy trestles, and a board
Where Sato’s gift, a changeless sword,
By pen and paper lies,
That it may moralise
My days out of their aimlessness.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)