if it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.17 in modern English
75
Scrabble Score
43
Letters
4
Syllables
16
Unique Chars
Meaning
phrase
In order to save water, only flush the toilet after defecation, not after urination.
Example Sentences
- "[Robyn] Griggs [Lawrence] tells them [the audience] they can make a difference without spending thousands of dollars: Line-dry clothes, vacuum refrigerator coils, and reuse greywater—water that’s been used once but is clean enough to use again—to irrigate the lawn or fill up the toilet tank. She recites her own family’s mantra regarding toilet-flushing: “If it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down.”"
- "The motto for our bathroom is “If it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down.” Yeah, that is the bathroom—a small commode that flushes with help of a bucket of water."
- "Never mind 'If it's yellow, let it mellow – if it's brown, flush it down.' My motto is: 'If it's brown, spread it on the ground – if it's yellow, recycle it like a good fellow.'"
- "The first obvious difference you can make is simply to choose not to flush every time. If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down."
- "Here is what I will say about the “If it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down” rule: this is fine, providing you drink a lot of water."
- "He [Jimmy Goodson] also passed along some water-saving tips to customers from residents Ingrid and Doug Scott. “If it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down. Urine is a sterile liquid and the toilet is not there for the purpose of Fido getting a drink or Junior floating his rubber ducky,” the couple said."
Etymology
Inflected Forms
if it's yellow (canonical)
let it mellow; if it's brown (canonical)
flush it down (canonical)