When a roll of toilet paper hangs on a horizontal holder, the loose end can fall one of two ways. Everyone has a preference, few can explain it, and almost nobody is willing to change.
Toilet paper orientation is about as low-stakes as a disagreement gets. Still, it keeps turning up in advice columns, household arguments, radio call-ins and brand-sponsored surveys. People rarely care much about which way the roll faces until someone else's roll faces the wrong way.
The arguments are usually practical: which way is easier to grab, which way looks neater, which way stops the cat from unrolling it. Underneath those arguments is habit. Most people hang the roll the way they saw it done growing up.
Commentators have joked that your choice says something about your personality, age or even income. Those claims are fun, but they're poorly supported. What is consistent is that one side is clearly bigger.
of people who state a preference choose over.
Results vary a lot depending on who ran the poll, who took part and how the question was worded. Treat the number as a rough guide, not a census.
Each argument you pick pulls the rope toward that side. See where you end up.
Before a roll could face the wrong way, someone had to invent the roll.
Seth Wheeler of Albany, New York, received U.S. patents in the late 1800s for rolled, perforated wrapping paper. The drawings in his 1891 patent show the roll with the loose end hanging in front.
More than a century later, those drawings spread online as "proof" that over is correct. Supporters of under point out that a patent drawing is an illustration, not a rule about how to hang the roll.
The sketch is an original illustration inspired by the style of old patent drawings. It is not a copy of the actual patent.
Cat owners are the most practical supporters of "under," and here's why. A downward swipe on the front of an "over" roll spins it and pulls paper off. The same swipe on an "under" roll turns it the other way, so the paper winds back up.
Five questions. No data. Full confidence.
Your vote is saved on this device, and the site will switch to your team's color.