Utente:Itrucid/Sandbox3

Toilet paper when used with a toilet roll holder with a horizontal axle parallel to the floor has two possible orientations: the toilet paper may hang over (in front of) or under (behind) the roll. The choice is largely a matter of personal preference, dictated by habit. In surveys of US consumers and of bath and kitchen specialists, 60–70 percent of respondents prefer over.

While many people consider this topic unimportant, some hold strong opinions on the matter. Advice columnist Ann Landers said that the subject was the most controversial issue in her column's history. Defenders of either position cite advantages ranging from aesthetics, hospitality, and cleanliness to paper conservation, the ease of detaching individual squares, and compatibility with a recreational vehicle or a cat. Celebrities are found on both sides. Some writers have proposed connections to age, sex, or political philosophy; and survey evidence has shown a correlation with socioeconomic status.

Solutions range from compromise, to using separate dispensers or separate bathrooms entirely, or simply ignoring the issue altogether. One man advocates a plan under which his country will standardize on a single forced orientation, and at least one inventor hopes to popularize a new kind of toilet roll holder which swivels from one orientation to the other.

Context and relevance

In the article "Bathroom Politics: Introducing Students to Sociological Thinking from the Bottom Up",Template:Sfn Eastern Institute of Technology sociology professor Edgar Alan Burns describes some reasons toilet paper politics is worthy of examination. On the first day of Burns' introductory course in sociology, he asks his students, "Which way do you think a roll of toilet paper should hang?"Template:Sfn In the following fifty minutes, the students examine why they picked their answers, exploring the social construction of "rules and practices which they have never consciously thought about before".Template:Sfn They make connections to larger themes of sociology, including gender roles, the public and private spheres, race and ethnicity, social class, and age. Moreover, Burns argues that there is an additional lesson:

«Sociologists are often concerned that their discipline is seen merely as an elaboration of the trivial or the obvious. Therefore, the theoretical point illustrated through the paper-hanging exercise is not that small-scale realities are the opposite of big picture sociology, but rather that the big picture does not exist separately "out there." Minor details and "taken for granted" rules and beliefs are the built-in meta-narratives of society, and this is what makes them so powerful.Template:Sfn»

Burns' activity has been adopted by a social psychology course at the University of Notre Dame, where it is used to illustrate the principles of Berger and Luckmann's 1966 classic The Social Construction of Reality.Template:Sfn Similar everyday topics that have been used to awaken the sociological imagination include games of tic-tac-toe, violations of personal space, the rules of walking, and the etiquette by which men choose urinals in public restrooms.

Christopher Peterson, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, classifies the choice of toilet paper orientation under "tastes, preferences, and interests" as opposed to either values or "attitudes, traits, norms, and needs". Other personal interests include one's favorite cola or baseball team. Interests are an important part of identity; one expects and prefers that different people have different interests, which serves one's "sense of uniqueness". Differences in interests usually lead at most to teasing and gentle chiding. For most people, interests don't cause the serious divisions caused by conflicts of values; a possible exception is what Peterson calls "the 'get a life' folks among us" who elevate interests into moral issues.Template:Sfn

Morton Ann Gernsbacher, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, compares the orientation of toilet paper to the orientation of cutlery in a dishwasher, the choice of which drawer in a chest of drawers to place one's socks, and the order of shampooing one's hair and lathering one's body in the shower. In each choice, there is a prototypical solution chosen by the majority, and it is tempting to offer simplistic explanations of how the minority must be different. She warns that neuroimaging experiments—which as of 2007 were beginning to probe behaviors from mental rotation and facial expressions to grocery shopping and tickling—must strive to avoid such cultural bias and stereotypes.Template:Sfn

In his book Conversational Capital, Bertrand Cesvet gives toilet paper placement as an example of ritualized behavior—one of the ways designers and marketers can create a memorable experience around a product that leads to word-of-mouth momentum. Cesvet's other examples include shaking a box of Tic Tacs and dissecting Oreo cookies.Template:Sfn

Sometimes toilet paper is simply entertaining. In between songs at a concert, John Hiatt will sometimes tell the tale of his wife switching her preference.Template:Sfn Broadcaster Jim Bohannon, who once spent an hour on toilet paper orientation, explains that such issues are good for talk radio: "It is an interactive medium, a certain kind of clash, it doesn't have to be a violent clash, but at least a disagreement would certainly be at the top of the list. It has to be something that's of general interest."Template:Sfn

There is a difficulty in the medium of television: on the major American networks NBC and CBS, as of 1987, toilet paper was not allowed to be shown hanging next to the toilet.Template:Sfn The 1970s sitcom All in the Family was the first show to include a discussion of toilet paper, when Archie yelled at Meathead for hanging the paper under. In a 1995 episode of The Simpsons, "Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily", the children are confiscated by Child Protective Services, who hand Marge a note citing her home as a "squalid hellhole" where the toilet paper is "hung in improper overhand fashion".Template:Sfn

Preliminaries

In their 2006 book Why Not?, Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres write that the debate over toilet paper is a debate about symmetry. (They also write that too much paper has been wasted on the issue, and that they prefer over.) By taking an approximately symmetric situation and flipping it around, one can sometimes arrive at a new solution to a problem with its own surprising advantages. Other physical examples include peeling a banana from the apex rather than the pedicel, or steering a car from the rear rather than the front.Template:Sfn

There is a reflection symmetry between the left and right sides of the roll, so whether it rotates clockwise or counterclockwise is ambiguous; it depends on one's point of view.Template:Sfn The up/down and front/back symmetries are broken by the force of gravity and the locations of the wall and the user, so one can distinguish between two orientations:

• Over: the end hangs away from the wall and dispenses over the top of the roll when pulled.
• Under: the end hangs next to the wall and dispenses under the bottom of the roll.

This nomenclature can also be read ambiguously. In 1991, a customer wrote to Herb Kelleher, chairman of Southwest Airlines, with an unusual complaint: "Dear Herb: ... Last week in my journey to SFO someone put the toilet paper in wrong. Any damn fool knows the papers come out the bottom of the roll and not over the top. I couldn't figure out how to correct the error ..."Template:Sfn Kelleher replied, copying his senior management committee, general counsel, and customer relations manager: "Dear Jim: What the hell were you doing upside down in our lavatory?" Kevin and Jackie Freiberg cite this episode in their book Nuts! as an example of Southwest's unconventional approach to customer service.Template:Sfn

There are other everyday objects that dispense a sheet of material from a roll: fax machines, cash registers, plastic wrap, aluminum foil, and parchment paper. One columnist who believes in the importance of toilet paper orientation writes, "all have to exit in the correct direction or it doesn't work, or you cut yourself, or both."Template:Sfn

Arguments for over or under

Folded and sealed toilet paper with cover, Hotel Monasterio 2009

Paper mounted under with upside-down images and text

The main reasons given by people to explain why they hang their toilet paper a given way are ease of grabbing and habit.Template:Sfn Some particular advantages cited for each orientation include:

• Over reduces the risk of accidentally brushing the wall or cabinet with one's knuckles, potentially transferring grime and germs.
• Over makes it easier to visually locate and to grasp the loose end.
• Over gives hotels, cruise ships, office buildings, public places and homeowners with guest bathrooms the option to fold over the last sheet to show that the room has been cleaned.
• Over is generally the intended direction of viewing for the manufacturer's branding, so patterned toilet paper looks better this way.

• Under provides a tidier appearance, in that the loose end can be more hidden from view.
• Under reduces the risk that a toddler or a house pet, such as a dog or cat, will completely unroll the toilet paper when batting at the roll.
• Under in a recreational vehicle may reduce unrolling during driving.Template:Sfn

Partisans have claimed that each method makes it easier to tear the toilet paper on a perforated sheet boundary, depending on the direction of pulling and the use of a second hand to stabilize the roll. (A traveller from the U.S. to China in 1991 noted a different setup: non-perforated paper with a metal cutter above the roll, which obliges the over direction.)Template:Sfn

It is unclear if one orientation is more economical than the other. The Centralian Advocate attributes a claim that over saves on paper usage to Planet Green.Template:Sfn A reader of The Orange County Register found a "six-month study" by a "university in the U.S." that came to the same conclusion.Template:Sfn But a reader of the Cape Argus wrote that a "British loo paper manufacturer" came to the opposite conclusion.Template:Sfn In his humor compilation How Hemlines Predict the Economy, Peter FitzSimons writes that placing the hanging flap against the wall "is generally twice as economical".Template:Sfn

In the academic field of evaluation, Michael Scriven writes that the question of the correct way to insert toilet paper is a "one-item aptitude test" for measuring one's evaluation skills. These skills include the evaluative attitude, practical logical analysis, empathy, teaching, and being a quick study. To prove one's competence, one may either derive the "one right answer" or prove that the test is or is not culturally biased.Template:Sfn

Survey results

The question "Do you prefer that your toilet tissue unwinds over or under the spool?" is featured on the cover of Barry Sinrod and Mel Poretz's 1989 book The First Really Important Survey of American Habits. The overall result: 68 percent chose over.Template:Sfn Sinrod explained, "To me, the essence of the book is the toilet paper question ... Either people don't care, or they care so much that they practically cause bodily injury to one another."Template:Sfn Poretz observed, "The toilet-paper question galvanizes people almost like the Miller Lite tastes-great/less-filling commercial."Template:Sfn

In Bernice Kanner's 1995 book Are You Normal?, 53 percent of survey respondents prefer over, while "a fourth" prefer under and 8 percent do not know or care.Template:Sfn

Sitting Pretty: The History of the Toilet, a travelling exhibition that tours Canadian museums, asks visitors to register their preferred roll direction. When the exhibition reached Huntsville, Ontario, in June 2001, 13,000 visitors had taken the survey, with 67 percent preferring over.Template:Sfn At the Saint Boniface Museum in Winnipeg in February 2005, a voting machine registered 5,831 over versus 5,679 under, or 51 percent over. Saint Boniface's director noted, "I think there's been some cheating, though."Template:Sfn

Georgia-Pacific commissioned a survey of Americans' bathroom habits in 1993 to launch its new Quilted Northern brand, and more surveys followed:

• 1993 Practices and Preferences of Toilet Paper Users: 73 percent over out of 1,200 respondents. The press release claims, "A first-of-its-kind survey has settled, once and for all, the great toilet paper debate."Template:Sfn
• 1994 Toilet Paper Report: 59 percent over,Template:Sfn out of 1,000 respondents; conducted by KRC Research and ConsultingTemplate:Sfn
• 1995 Bathroom Tissue Report: 59 percent over versus 29 percent under,Template:Sfn out of 1,000 respondents; conducted by KRC Research and ConsultingTemplate:Sfn
• 2001 Bathroom Confidential: 63 percent over out of 1,001 respondents; conducted by Impulse ResearchTemplate:Sfn
• 2004 Bathroom Confidential: 72 percent over

In 1993, American Standard Brands conducted a poll of "designers, contractors, dealers, distributors and other bath and kitchen reps"Template:Sfn at the Kitchen/Bath Industry Show & Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. The question: "What is the correct and only way to hang the toilet paper – under or over?"Template:Sfn Over won 59 percent of the vote, 1,826 to 1,256.Template:Sfn American Standard spokeswoman Nora Monroe observed, "The bathroom is a territorial place. You'd be surprised how many people have definite opinions on this issue."Template:Sfn In 2008, American Standard commissioned the 2008 Bathroom Habits Survey, a more traditional format conducted by Opinion Research Corporation with 1,001 respondents. This time, "three-quarters" answered over.Template:Sfn

In 1995, a survey by Scott Paper Company's "Cottonelle College of Freshness Knowledge" had "most Americans over 50" preferring over.Template:Sfn In another Cottonelle survey in 1999, 68 percent of respondents preferred over to 25 percent under. Columnist Bonnie Henry hypothesizes of the others: "Meanwhile, 7 percent – no doubt bored beyond belief at this point by the inane questioning – had slipped into a deep, irreversible coma."Template:Sfn

On January 27, 2010, the 100th anniversary of Thomas Crapper's death,Template:Sfn Cottonelle launched a "Great Debate" advertising campaign, inviting American consumers to vote their preference at a Kimberly-Clark website. The result was announced during the 82nd Academy Awards: 72 percent had voted over.Template:Sfn In a more traditional preliminary survey of 1,000 Americans, Cottonelle found that "overs" are more likely than "unders" to notice a roll's direction (74 percent), to be annoyed when the direction is incorrect (24 percent), and to have flipped the direction at a friend's home (27 percent).Template:Sfn

Besides orientation, toilet paper manufacturers and survey authors have studied other private practices around toilet paper: how much is used; whether it is torn off with one hand or two; whether it is torn off right-to-left or left-to-right; and whether it is crumpled or folded before use.Template:Sfn

Themes

Sex and age

Poretz and Sinrod break down the results of their 1989 survey by sex and age. These are the percentages of respondents who roll their paper over:Template:Sfn

	21–34	35–44	45–54	55 +	Average
Male	71%	81%	60%	63%	69%
Female	81%	65%	62%	83%	67%
Average	76%	73%	61%	73%	68%

The book does not note the number of respondents in each segment, so it is difficult to say whether any of the deviations are statistically significant, but there does not seem to be a difference between men's and women's preferences. Nonetheless, such a difference has been claimed by other authors, in both directions. The American Standard conference poll concluded: "Many men voted for over, saying it made the paper easier to reach."Template:Sfn Inventor Curtis Batts arrives at a different conclusion from his personal experience: "Women like it over, and men like it under. I think it bugs women when it touches the wall."Template:Sfn Advice columnist Ms Maud of The Press asserts that women prefer over because they are "logical thinkers".Template:Sfn

A Cottonelle survey indicated that men were more likely than women to notice, and become annoyed with, a toilet roll hung against their preference.Template:Sfn

A popular-culture occurrence of a gender theory is found in the Weekly World News, a supermarket tabloid that runs outlandish stories for comedic effect. In the 2003 story North Korea Shocker!, the WWN claimed that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was secretly female. As supporting evidence, Kim supposedly watched the Home Shopping Network, is a member of Oprah's Book Club, and "Yells at staffers who leave the toilet seat up and hang toilet paper rolls outward instead of inward."Template:Sfn

According to W. C. Privy's Original Bathroom Companion, Number 2, "By more than 4 to 1, older folks prefer to have their toilet paper dispense over the front."Template:Sfn The same claim is made by James Buckley's The Bathroom Companion for people older than 50.Template:Sfn

Class and politics

Sinrod observed of his survey, "60 percent of those who earn $50,000 or more prefer it to be over and 73 percent of those who earn less than $20,000 prefer under".Template:Sfn On what that proves: "I don't know, but it's sure interesting."Template:Sfn

In one local election in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, new voting machines were given a trial run by asking the question, "Are you in favor of toilet paper in all public washrooms being installed with the loose end coming up and over the front of the roll?" The answer was yes: 768 to 196, or 80 percent over. It was thought to be a question "which carried no political association".Template:Sfn Yet one teenager's science project at the Southern Appalachian Science and Engineering Fair, and a favorite of the fair's coordinator, was a survey concluding that liberals roll over while conservatives roll under.Template:Sfn

Character

In his 2003 book 10 Steps to Sales Success, Tim Breithaupt proposes a set of four personality types evolving from Carl Jung's work: Socializer, Director, Thinker, and Relater. Breithaupt writes that toilet paper management is an important detail for Thinkers, while Directors don't care so long as the paper is available.Template:Sfn In her 2001 book Three Keys to Self-Understanding, Pat Wyman locates having an opinion on toilet paper hanging on the Enneagram of Personality, which classifies people as Ones, Twos, Threes, and so on: "Ones know the answer to such dilemmas."Template:Sfn

Gilda Carle, a therapist and Cottonelle consultant, offers her theories on character traits:

«If you roll over, you like taking charge, crave organization and are likely to over-achieve.
If you roll under, you're laid-back, dependable and seek relationships with strong foundations.
If you don't care as long as it's there, you aim to minimize conflict, value flexibility and like putting yourself in new situations.Template:Sfn»

David Grimes, a columnist, takes a more sarcastic attitude towards bathroom-informed personality tests:

«If you are the kind of person who prefers the paper to roll over the top, then you are an outgoing, free-spending type who gets his kicks trying to sneak 11 items through the 10-items-or-less line at the grocery store; if you are the kind of person who prefers the paper to roll from the bottom, then you are a naturally suspicious sort who vacuums his house three times a day and thinks Jerry Springer is god.

Or perhaps the other way around.Template:Sfn»

A reporter for the trade journal Fund Action relays a story of a mutual fund firm that profiled job candidates with questions that would be analyzed by a psychologist. One of the questions was "Which way do you hang toilet paper? So it unrolls from the front or the back?". The story does not reveal the name of the firm or its preferred answer.Template:Sfn

Consequences

Toilet paper orientation is often mentioned as a hurdle for married couples. The issue may also arise in businesses and public places.

Even at the Amundsen–Scott Research Station at the South Pole, complaints have been raised over which way to install toilet paper. During the six-month-long polar night, a few dozen residents are stuck living together, and while many of the headaches of modern life are far away, food and hygiene are not. Despite the challenges posed by the hostile Antarctic climate, "It is in the more mundane trials of everyday life that personality clashes are revealed."Template:Sfn

Similar controversies

Domestic strife can arise from many other situations where a household item, such as a tube of toothpaste, is left in the wrong state.Template:Sfn Some closely related examples:

• Which way should a paper towel hang in the kitchen? When Ann Landers was asked this question in 1997, she replied, "I'm still trying to recover from the flak ... I'm not giving any more advice on how to hang anything."Template:Sfn
• Should a toilet seat be left up or down? This debate involves a stronger asymmetry between the sexes, as women rarely want the seat up.Template:Sfn
• Should a twist tie be tightened clockwise or counter-clockwise?Template:Sfn Since some store-bought products are pre-tied by machine, this question also pits consumer against engineer.Template:Sfn
• For a public restroom stall with a dispenser holding two rolls of paper, Donald Knuth proposes classifying users into big-choosers (those who take paper from the roll that is currently larger) and little-choosers (those who do the opposite). Letting $p$ denote the probability that a random user is a big-chooser and $q$ that of a little-chooser, Knuth uses contour integration and generating functions to find the expected number of sheets left on the larger roll when the smaller one runs out. He shows (Theorem 1) that if $|p-1/2|$ is of order at least $1/{\sqrt {n}}$, then

$M_{n}(p)={\begin{cases}p/(p-q)+O(r^{n}),&q<p\\((q-p)/q)n+p/(q-p)+O(r^{n}),&q>p\end{cases}}$

where $r$ is an arbitrary parameter larger than 4pq and n is the number of sheets in a roll. He also separately analyzes the case where p=q.

Solutions

Some of the proposed solutions to this problem involve more or better technology, while others concentrate on human behavior.

Mechanical

The Tilt-A-Roll is a swiveling toilet paper dispenser invented by Curtis Batts, a Dallas-native industrial engineer.Template:Sfn His patents on the invention published in 1996 and 1997, Template:Patent and Template:Patent, summarize its design:

«An adjustable angle coupling secures the yoke to the mounting assembly and permits rotation of the yoke about an axis directed orthogonally through the spindle such that the paper roll can be oriented to unroll paper either from over or from under the roll as desired.»

Batts explains that his parents argued over toilet paper placement "all the time", as do he and his wife; the device's motto is "Let Tilt-A-Roll save your marriage!"Template:Sfn The Tilt-A-Roll has been featured on a variety of newspapers, magazines, radio interviews, and TV shows, including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.Template:Sfn Batts entered the Tilt-A-Roll at the 1999 INPEX invention show, the world's largest invention show with 800 inventions,Template:Sfn and it won third place "for its appeal and simplicity".Template:Sfn

Batts started out constructing the devices in a workshop in his garage. He explains, "I've had a few sleepless nights where I went 24 hours making these things. I've got to find a manufacturer for it. I can't keep up with the volume."Template:Sfn As of 2000, Batts was still "in the process of selecting a distributor";Template:Sfn he has tried The Home DepotTemplate:Sfn and QVC.Template:Sfn As of 2008, the Tilt-A-Roll is on sale at Batt's website.

An inventor named Rocky Hutson demonstrated a similar device he called the T.P. Swivel to the producers of the television program PitchMen in late 2009. Of 173 entrants gathered at Ybor City, Tampa, Florida, Hutson was one of the twenty chosen to pitch their products to Anthony Sullivan.Template:Sfn For his part, Hutson pulls his paper from the top of the roll.Template:Sfn

Twelve rolls in a mix of states

Another solution: install two toilet paper dispensers, as is more common in public restrooms and hotels. A reader of the Annie's Mailbox column recommends using a holder large enough to fit two rolls, noting that the roll mounted over is more popular. Another reader sidesteps the issue by foregoing the holder, instead piling five or six rolls in a big wicker basket.Template:Sfn Even using separate bathrooms can help. Other solutions include vertical holders, or simply not using a toilet roll holder at all.

Behavioral

A Grand Rapids, Michigan, toilet paper enthusiast named Bill Jarrett argues that previous polls have been too small. He wants a national referendum with at least one million votes, with the result to decide a "national toilet paper hanging way" to be enforced by "the toilet paper police".Template:Sfn Jarrett refuses to reveal his own preference; he even removed the toilet paper from his house's bathrooms before inviting in an AP reporter for an interview. "I'm not saying because I don't want to influence the vote."Template:Sfn Voting requires the purchase of a $5 debate kit. His value proposition to the nation: assuming that one can spend half an hour per year searching for the end of the toilet paper, the United States should save 90 million hours at home per year—and $300 million at the workplace.Template:Sfn

Toilet paper orientation has been used rhetorically as the ultimate issue that government has no business dictating, in letters to the editor protesting the regulation of noise pollutionTemplate:Sfn and stricter requirements to get a divorce.Template:Sfn In 2006, protesting New Hampshire's ban on smoking in restaurants and bars, representative Ralph Boehm (R-Litchfield) asked "Will we soon be told which direction the toilet paper must hang from the roll?"Template:Sfn

In a column in the Houston Chronicle, Jack Brewer observes that it only takes five seconds to turn the roll "the right way" around (over), which is much less than the time it takes to "start a fuss" with his wife.Template:Sfn

In a column in The Grand Rapids Press, Karin Orr relates her chance discovery that her husband and sister both turn the toilet paper around in others' houses—and in opposite directions. Orr writes, "You just can never really know another person."Template:Sfn

David O'Connor's 2005 book Henderson's House Rules: The Official Guide to Replacing the Toilet Paper and Other Domestic Topics of Great Dispute aims to solve disagreements with a minimum of debate or compromise by offering authoritative, reasonable rules.Template:Sfn The "House Rule" for toilet paper is over and out, and a full page is dedicated to a diagram of this orientation. But O'Connor writes that "if a female household member has a strong preference for the toilet paper to hang over and in, against the wall, that preference prevails. It is admittedly an odd preference, but women use toilet paper far more often than men—hence the rule."

Noted preferences

Multi-orientable toilet paper holder

Advice columnist Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer) was once asked which way toilet paper should hang. She answered under, prompting thousands of letters in protest; she then recommended over, prompting thousands more.Template:Sfn She reflected that the 15,000 letters made toilet paper the most controversial issue in her column's 31-year history,Template:Sfn wondering, "With so many problems in the world, why were thousands of people making an issue of tissue?"Template:Sfn

In November 1986, Landers told the Canadian Commercial Travellers Association that "Fine-quality toilet paper has designs that are right side up" in the over position.Template:Sfn In 1996, she explained the issue on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where 68 percent of the studio audience favored over; Oprah suggested that under uses more paper.Template:Sfn In 1998, she wrote that the issue "seems destined to go on forever", insisting, "In spite of the fact that an overwhelming number of people prefer the roll hung so that the paper comes over the top, I still prefer to have the paper hanging close to the wall."Template:Sfn On the day of her last column in 2002, Landers wrote, "P.S. The toilet paper hangs over the top."Template:Sfn Her commentary on the issue has even continued after her death. 2005 saw the premiere of a one-woman play written by David Rambo: a character study of Ann Landers titled The Lady with All the Answers. Toilet paper comes up once again, and the actress surveys the audience for their opinions.

In his article in Teaching Sociology, Burns writes that the toilet paper hanging exercise is valuable in part because "[the] subject matter is familiar to everybody; everyone is an expert, and everyone has an opinion."Template:Sfn The media have published the opinions of entertainers, advice columnists, and businesspeople, including the following:

Over

• Paul Burrell, butler to Diana, Princess of Wales: "Of course it should be over. If it were down, it would unravel all over the floor. Royals don't have that problem, because they have sheets of tissue which are fanned out into an attractive display and sit in a box."Template:Sfn
• Hilarie Burton, actress: "Over! I hate the under. Why reach further for it than you have to?"Template:Sfn
• Lincoln Cheng, owner of Zouk: "... so it does not touch the wall and possibly pick up germs."Template:Sfn
• Paige Davis, television host, Trading SpacesTemplate:Sfn
• Karen Duffy, actressTemplate:Sfn
• Carson Elliott, advice columnist: "This way makes grasping the paper much easier than if it comes from underneath the roll."Template:Sfn
• Answer Fella of Esquire and Kenn Fischburg, president of toiletpaperworld.com: "... experts consulted by AF's ass-crack research squadron say TP is properly hung over the top, not underneath. 'I prefer it to be as close to me as possible.Template:'"
• Rae Hill, engineer and manager of Kimberly-Clark's Owensboro, Kentucky tissue mill: "over the top"Template:Sfn
• Narendra Jaggi, rocket scientist: "Definitely top. You can rip it very easily. You use the other hand to hold like this and rip."Template:Sfn
• Daren Kagasoff, actorTemplate:Sfn
• Ann Landers, advice columnist, who wrote on the day of her last column in 2002, "P.S. The toilet paper hangs over the top."Template:Sfn
• Jay Leno, comedian. Leno "... will even change the paper at others' houses, saying if people don't have it right, they obviously don't know which way it's supposed to go."Template:Sfn
• Debi Mazar, actressTemplate:Sfn
• Ty Pennington, television host, Extreme Makeover: Home EditionTemplate:Sfn
• Samantha Ronson, singer-songwriter: "Over! It has to be over. I am maniacally obsessed with that."Template:Sfn
• The San Francisco State University faculty club: "Put the roll on 'under,' and the swans would be seen swimming upside down. And, of course, faced with this final crushing blow, the opposition crumbled."Template:Sfn
• Tori Spelling, actress: "Over is just more chic."Template:Sfn
• Matt Wertz, singer-songwriter: "Over the front. It's the only way."Template:Sfn
• Mr Herriman from the animated cartoon Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.
• Martha Stewart prefers over, citing practicality and aesthetics.

Indifferent

• Annie's Mailbox, advice column by Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar: "If the toilet paper has a pattern, it should roll from the top over. Otherwise, it doesn't matter. Really. However you like it is just fine with us."Template:Sfn
• Heloise, advice columnist: "Both ways. I try not to get obsessed about these things."Template:Sfn
• Erik Seidel, brand director for Kimberly-Clark's Scott portfolio: "That's a key debate in my house. The 'under' looks cleaner and neater because you don't see it. The 'over' is more convenient."Template:Sfn

Under

• Ann Landers, advice columnist: "I'm very compulsive about it. The toilet paper needs to be hung down along the wall. I'll actually rearrange it myself if I'm over at someone's home and I see it hung over the top."Template:Sfn
• Dean McDermott, actor: "Under just says Zen to me. When it rolls over, the toilet paper seems so aggressive. Calmly rolled under, it's symmetrical and orderly and there when I need it."Template:Sfn
• Mel Poretz, author and marketing executive: "I'm an 'under' and thought we were in the majority by far. I never thought there were civilized people who put toilet paper over the top."Template:Sfn "... I married an under-the-roll girl. If not, we'd probably be divorced."Template:Sfn
• Gerhard Richter's 1965 oil painting Klorolle depicts a roll hung under, as a comment on Marcel Duchamp's Fountain. Unusually, the source material is a photograph he took himself.Template:Sfn The third version of the work (CR 75-3) has been exhibited in six museums, and in 1995, it sold at Sotheby's for £120,000.Template:Sfn
• Barry Sinrod, author and marketing executive: "I'm an under person, I don't know why."Template:Sfn
• Gene Weingarten, journalist: "The main reason is aesthetic. It looks better. I will warrant that 80 to 85 percent of artists, architects and interior decorators have it spool out from below, with the overage hanging against the wall, not flappying down from the top into the middle of the room. I am so right. I am inarguably correct. I cannot even believe we are having this discussion."Template:Sfn

References

• Answer Fella, Famous Birthdays, Girlfriend Advice & a Brief History of Toilet Paper, vol. 147, n. 1, January 2007. URL consultato l'11 July 2010.
• Diane C. Arkins, Consider Fallout of New Bath, 7 October 1994, Template:Factiva.
• W. C. Privy's Original Bathroom Companion, Number 2, St. Martin's Press, December 2003.
• Steve Blow, This survey asks questions we care about, 7 November 1990, Template:Factiva.
• Jenifer D. Braun, Makeover host trades roles, 28 August 2003, Template:Factiva.
• Tim Breithaupt, 10 Steps to Sales Success, AMACOM, 2003.
• Jack Brewer, Among Friends: There's always time to change, 1º December 2002, Template:Factiva.
• James Buckley, The Bathroom Companion: A Collection of Facts About the Most-Used Room in the House, Quirk Books, 2005.
• Edgar Alan Burns, Bathroom Politics: Introducing Students to Sociological Thinking from the Bottom Up, in Teaching Sociology, vol. 31, n. 1, January 2003, pp. 110–118.
• Paul A. Cantor, Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization, Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.
• Bertrand Cesvet, Conversational Capital: How to Create Stuff People Love to Talk About, Pearson Education, 2008.
• Dan Ciancio, New study flushes out facts on the American bathroom (press release), 1º February 1994, Template:Factiva.
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Further reading

• For Your Information, 4 October 1993, Template:Factiva.

  References "a Reader's Digest poll". Primary source unclear.

• Ed Brody, Spinning Tales, Weaving Hope: Stories, Storytelling, and Activities for Peace, Justice and the Environment, New Society Publishers, 2002.
• W. Bruce Cameron, How to Remodel a Man: Tips and Techniques on Accomplishing Something You Know Is Impossible But Want to Try Anyway, Macmillan, 2004.
• Richard P. Carpenter, It's swimming vs. snoozing, 28 March 1999, Template:Factiva.
• Kim Freeman, Vox Jox, 8 February 1986.

  References a poll by Ric Hanson featured in USA Today.

• David I. Grossvogel, Dear Ann Landers: our intimate and changing dialogue with America's best-loved confidante, Contemporary Books, 1987.
• William Jude Kelly, Models in process: a rhetoric and reader, Macmillan, 1988.
• Rick Kogan, America's Mom: The Life, Lessons, and Legacy of Ann Landers, Thorndike Press, 2004.
• Dave Praeger, Poop Culture: How America Is Shaped by Its Grossest National Product, Feral House, 2007.
• David Selby, Earthkind: a teachers' handbook on humane education, Trentham Books, 1995.
• Stephen Singular, Talked to death: the life and murder of Alan Berg, 1987.

  Mentions Bob Palmer of Denver's KCNC-TV doing a show on this topic.

• Society of Automotive Engineers, Reliability and robust design in automotive engineering, 2004.

  Presents a statistical test to determine gender differences in toilet paper orientation.

• Robert Trachtenberg, When I Knew, HarperCollins, 2005.

External links

• Chris Rugen of CurrentConfig.com offers diagrammed arguments for over and an Overhanging Public Service Hanger Brochure