Translation: Not cleaning it, dude.

A preview of the new play A Thing Most Fowl. Tickets on sale Thursday!

Act I, Scene I. A darkened farmhouse.

Thunder and lightning. Enter THREE FARMERS.

1st Farmer: When next we meet at time’s best,

In winter, summer, or at high harvest?

 2nd Farmer: When we gather as one group,

For to clean the chicken coop.

3rd Farmer: I ain’t cleanin’ poultry poop.

(Farmers 1 and 2 glare at the third.)

1st Farmer: Where’s the place?

2nd Farmer: Out in back.

3rd Farmer: It’s the stench that makes you yack.

1st Farmer: Let’s do it fair, boys.

2nd Farmer: Duty calls.

3rd Farmer: (bleep!).

All: Fair is fowl, and fowl is fair!

3rd Farmer: I’d rather clean hogs than smell that air. . . .*

All right, so I just obliterated Shakespeare's noble work. What can I say? I'm a fanfic writer. ^^

But as you can see, the right use for fowl is the noun: when referring to domestic or wild birds.

Foul, on the other hand, is used mostly as an adjective, meaning a horribly offensive smell. The farmers in the aforementioned hacking of the first scene of Shakespeare’s Macbeth are talking about the stench of the fowl pen, but never actually use the word ‘foul’. Foul can also describe something dirty, grimy, or filthy. For instance, little boys usually like to play in the mud. After doing backstrokes in muddy piles for hours on end, they’re likely to have some foul, messy clothing. Or, foul can describe someone: a foul mood meaning ‘unpleasant’; a foul person can mean someone offensive or criminal, etc. Foul can also be used as a verb, an action, meaning pollute, sully, soil, or taint. It also takes different meaning in sports (adverbs), describing some sort of illegal or prohibited act.

Ex. 1: Andy was in a foul mood today, but when one’s day was as unpleasant as his had been, his disposition was justifiable.

Ex. 2: “This is really quite foul,” Ashley’s mother stated as she pinched her nose to avoid the terrible stench of curdled milk. She shook her head disapprovingly as she took in the messy dorm room. “College kids.” She said with an exasperated sigh.

Ex. 3: Did you know that the appropriate term for peacock is ‘peafowl’? Males are peacocks and females are peahens. Wicked strange. . . .

Ex. 4: Julio was upset that he’d been fouled out of the game in the last two minutes. Had he not, he’s sure his three-pointer could have won the match for his team.

Fowl and foul. Contrary to popular belief, they don’t mean the same thing.

3rd Farmer: But I still ain’t cleanin’ no bird poop.

Foul man, that one. Foul man.

* Butchered from Shakespeare's Macbeth, Act I, Scene I.