A handful of readers have been struggling with online translation services

to make sense of the Turkish apothegm I posted yesterday: “Nerede cokluk,

orada bokluk.” (There is a cedilla under the “c” which I can’t be bothered

to find out how to do.) Well, the following translation is as delicate as I

can make it: “Where there are people, there is excrement.” Which, as I

said, is indisputably true. It is so true, in fact, that, on reflection, I

should like some Turkish-spekaing reader to tell me in what kind of context

it is usual to utter it. After all, things that are universally and

obviously true hardly ever need saying out loud. What–to fall into po-mo

jargon–what is the “subtext” of this proverb?