What does "P.U." (in reference to stinkiness) stand for?

"What does {holding nose} P.U. mean?" my son asked me tonight. I told him I didn't know, and he laughed and said "It means stinky, Mommy!" Very funny and well said, but it left me wondering.

A search of Wikipedia and Etymology Online came up wanting and my etymological dictionaries are packed in boxes. What does this abbreviation stand for and why does it mean stinky?

Solution 1:

One person's attempt to find an answer seen on wordwizard.com came up with two different postulations which are interestingly possible.

1) It's a shortened term for puteo, which is Latin for "to stink, be redolent, or smell bad." I actually called a professor of Latin at the University of Florida to verify this one.

2) It's actually spelled "piu," but is often pronounced as "pee-yew". It's root is the Indo-European word "pu," meaning to rot or decay. A lot of other languages use this root word and have the same general meaning.

Solution 2:

I'm not 100% on this, but I don't think it's actually an abbreviation. It's possibly a way of saying "phew" that has morphed into "pee-you" or "pyoo" over time, as "phew" is often said with emphasis that makes it sound like two distinct syllables (stress on the "yew"):

"PheeeeeYEW that stinks!"

Or, to put it in another context that might sound more familiar:

"FeeYEW that was a close one!"

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/phew

used as an exclamation to express disgust, exhaustion, surprise, impatience, relief, etc.

Still, it's just a guess. I wouldn't be surprised if there was another, more accurate source.

Solution 3:

My boys and I decided that p.u. stood for positively unpleasant. Of course, we have no source for this, and it is likely to become a folk etymology now.