Are humans a messy species? - 6 Minute English

Hi! Neil from BBC Learning English here.

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Hello. This is 6 Minute English from

BBC Learning English. I'm Neil.

And I'm Sam.

If you live in a city, you're probably

familiar with this very modern sight:

a man walking his dog drops a

little black plastic bag into a

rubbish bin. Inside the bag is

dog poo.

It might make it seem that humans

are hygienic creatures - certainly

cleaner than dogs, who go to the

toilet wherever they want. But is

this the whole story?

How do us humans compare

with other animals when it comes

to keeping ourselves and our

environment clean? In this

programme, we ll be asking

whether humans as a species

are naturally clean and tidy.

In fact, from dumping raw

sewage into rivers to littering

the streets with trash, humans

aren't always good at

dealing with waste.

While some animals, on the

other hand, are

instinctively clean.

Right - cats for example dig a

hole to bury their poo.

In the past, humans got rid of

their waste by throwing it into

the street or into streams and

rivers, hoping the water

would wash it away.

Out of sight out of mind! That's

a phrase used to say that it's

easier to forget something

when you can't see it.

But this doesn't always work, as

we'll discover from my quiz

question, Sam. In Victorian times,

the population of London boomed

and so did all the pee and poo

being thrown into the River Thames.

It got so bad that by the 1850s

the awful smell had its own name,

but what? Was it: A) The Great

Stench?, B) The Great Stink?,

or C) The Great Smell?

Ugh! All sounds pretty

disgusting, Neil, but I'll go

for A) The Great Stench.

OK, Sam, we'll find out if

that's right later. Earlier you

mentioned cats as examples

of animals who hide their

waste, but leaf-cutter ants

go even further: they kill

any dirty ants trying to

re-enter the group!

Zoologist, Professor Adam Hart,

has spent years studying ants

and other clean creatures.

Here he is speaking with BBC

World Service programme,

The Conversation:

Some animals, you'll be

watching, and it is just pouring

out of the back end and they

don't seem to care. Other animals

will go to quite great lengths

to go to a specific area. Some

antelope for example will go

to a sort of latrine area. It's

really linked to their ecology so

quite often animals are

using dung and also urine

as marking posts and territorial

markers to say to other groups

of animals and other individuals

that, well, this is my

territory not yours.

Like cats and ants, antelopes

go to great lengths, meaning

they try very hard to do

something, in this case to

leave their poo - or dung - in

a specific area, away

from their home.

Antelopes leave smells, called

territorial markers, secreted in

urine, or pee, to tell other animals

that an area of land is

already occupied.

OK Sam, but just because

most of us don't pee at the

bottom of the garden, does

that necessarily mean

humans are dirtier?

Well, no, not according to

psychologist, Dr Michael De Barra.

He thinks that human attitudes to

cleanliness are related to the

problem of infectious diseases,

something we've all experienced

during the Covid pandemic.

Here is Dr De Barra, explaining

more to BBC World Service's,

The Conversation:

So, in humans it seems like

the emotion disgust is a big part

of how we deal with infectious

diseases problems. It's

characterised by avoidance,

by sometimes feelings of

nausea and what's interesting

about it is that it is elicited

by many of the things that

are infectious disease threats

in our environment - so that

might be particular smells, or

particular substances, body

wastes, physical signs of

infectious disease - coughs, sneezes.

Our natural reaction to something

which is dirty, and which therefore

may be diseased and harmful to

us, is disgust - a strong feeling of

dislike or repulsion.

We might feel so disgusted

at the sight or smell of human

waste that we actually want to

vomit - a feeling known

as nausea.

These bodily reactions are

the immune system's way of

saying: keep away!

this will make you sick!

So, although getting a bit dirty

won't kill you (unless you're a

leaf-cutter ant), human

evolution has developed a

psychological way of keeping

us clean. What's the

matter, Sam? You look a little green!

I am, Neil! All this talk of pee and

poo is disgusting! And just

image how bad it must have

been in the old days.

Like in Victorian times, before the

invention of modern sewers

and sanitation. In my quiz

question I asked you what

people called the awful smell

in London in the 1850s.

And I said it was, A) The

Great Stench. Was I right?

You were wrong! In fact the

answer was B) The Great Stink,

which stunk up the River Thames

all the way to Westminster.

It was only when the smell

reached the noses of politicians

in Parliament that something

was done about it.

So starting another useful phrase

'to raise a stink about something',

meaning to make a

strong public complaint.

OK, let's recap the other

vocabulary, starting with out

of sight, out of mind, a phrase

meaning that it's easier to

forget something when

you can't see it.

To go to great lengths means

to try very hard to

achieve something.

Territorial markers are smells

in animals - dung or urine

marking their territory.

These may fill you with disgust -

a feeling of strong dislike

or repulsion. Or even give you

nausea - the feeling that

you are going to vomit.

And that's all for this stinky

edition of 6 Minute English.

Join us again soon for

more topical chat and useful

vocabulary. Bye for now!

Bye!