Hmmm
'Europeans have always tried to
preserve on water'. I'm not convinced by kgreeney's
Member Information. And I'm sick of having folk etymologies sold to me with that unquestionable
take that to the bank attitude, particularly in the face of evidence to the contrary. As emsr2d2 said, this usage has been around since long before WCs were 'smart' enough to have dual-flush siphons.
Etymonline says 'Slang number one and number two for "urination" and "defecation" attested from 1902.' The dual-flush siphon was developed by the bio-tech company
Caroma. Wikipedia says
It was proposed by Victor Papanek in his 1976 book Design for the real world,[1] but the first practical implementation was designed by Australian inventor Bruce Thompson in 1980...
The coincidence of 'number one/two' fitting the dual-flush system is an accident that revisionist folk etymologists have latched onto, presumably in the hope that the audience won't do their homework and see the obvious truth that the supposed 'derivation' is a load of hooey.
b
PS It's occurred to me that the supposed neologiser travelled 80 years forwards through a wormhole and...
[scrub that
they weren't invented yet either.]