Fun though it would be , PUdoes not stand for “ Pretty unsavory ! ” , “ Putrid , ugh ! ” , or even “ Please use ( deodorant ) ! ”
In fact , it ’s not aninitialismat all . fit in toGrammarphobia , the exclamation likely derives from the early 17th - C wordpew , which the Oxford English Dictionarydefinesas “ express disdain , disgust , or ridicule . ” It ’s also been spelledpue , peuh , peugh , and evenpyoo . While all those iterations are technically pronounced as one syllable , the leading hypothesis is that people drew it out over two syllables—“pee - YOO”—for added flair .
As The Phrase Finderpoints out , this is not unlike how you might say “ Bee - YOO - ti - ful ! ” instead of “ Beautiful ! ” when you spot , for example , afancy pigeon . Since “ Pee - YOO ! ” sound exactly like the lettersPU , it ’s not toilsome to believe that everyone eventually started thinking that ’s how it was write .
That said , thepew - to - PUpipeline is n’t the only theory behind the expression . It ’s also beensuggestedthat it comes from the Indo - European wordpu , meaning “ to rot or decay ” ; or the Latin verbputere , intend “ to stink . ” There are quite a few term with association toputereand other related Latin words ( likeputrere , meaning “ to decompose , ” andputerorputridusfor “ rotten ” ) . These include , among others , pus , putrid , and the 16th - one C nounputor , meaning “ a bad or unpleasant smell . ” And those words trace back ( along with a lot of words in many Indo - European languages , like Englishfoul ) to the Proto - Indo - European*pu- , meaning “ to waste . ”
In myopic , the letterspuhave been associate withstenchfor a foresighted time . As for whether the expressionPUcame direct from there or rise in England ( or somewhere else ) much later , we ca n’t be sure .
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A version of this story run in 2021 ; it has been update for 2024 .
