trixtah | Dear internets

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Dear internets

English is not a subset of US English. It's the other way round. Kthxbai.

PS. US English speakers out there - I know that using the word "toilet" is deemed somehow impolite, but is it true that it's only ever used to refer to the plumbing fixture? (If you're not using terms like "commode" instead) That is, it's not used to refer to the "smallest room" at all?

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The smallest room is usually the bathroom. If it doesn't actually have a bath or a shower in it, it is a half-bath or powder room. There are real-estate definitions for half-bath and three-quarters bath. The latter contains a shower.

Euphemisms. Maybe in a few generations, "powder" will become faintly objectionable.

Alrighty. So "toilet" is never used for the room, then, even when you're calling a spade a spade?

I've seen "half bath" before, but I assume that was the one with the shower! :-)

I don't recall toilet being used for the room, but usage varies around the country, and I've spent most of my life in the northeast. It isn't the sort of usage one learns about on TV and doesn't show up that often in stories, either. I remember seeing "the necessary" used in a McCaffrey book and Moon's Paks referring to "jacks".

And I forgot to say, yes, toilet now is just used for the fixture. No one over here makes his or her toilet any more; they use it or go to it.

For the room, "little boys' room" or "little girls' room" are also used as euphemisms even in situations where the rooms are not segregated. Bolder folks might say "ladies' room", "gents'", "men's", "women's".

OK? Now you can safely come and visit us some time! :-)

Groovy! I'll undoubtedly forget all these nuances - maybe I'll just stick to asking to use "the facilities"!

That'll work.

Murricans are weird about toilets.

Totally. But it's been a learning experience - I knew they avoided the term altogether, but I didn't realise the word was only reserved for the plumbing fixture, on the rare occasions people can bring themselves to say it.

No, you folks segregating it off into a room without even a sink is being weird about toilets [g].

Well, in swanky houses, there often is a little sink in there, but it's pretty much always right next to the bathroom (ie. the bathroom with just the washing fixtures). :-)

Well, that's a new one on me [g].

Sometimes it's in the bathroom, but often it's not, probably so you don't have to worry about someone being in the shower when you wake up with a full bladder.

That, I admit, would be useful. I have a full bath upstairs and a half bath downstairs in my little condo (the bath downstairs shares a room with the washer and dryer), so if I had guests and really got desperate, we'd be okay [g].

Yeah, it makes more sense knowing this, which had never occurred to me before. I assumed bathroom was a euphemism, because some bathrooms have toilets, but it didn't make sense to me in public space contexts.

I'll go with

countrycousin - toilet is the fixture itself, never the room, by upper midwest usage. It is also sometimes referred to as a 'john'.

The room is the bathroom. For real estate purposes, there are full baths (tub, toilet, sink), three-quarter baths (shower/no tub, toilet, sink), and half baths (toilet & sink). I'm silly - I refer to a room with tub, separate shower, toilet & sink as a one-and-a-quarter bath, this is not standard usage!

Powder room is an acceptable euphemism. Litle (boys | girls) room, (ladies | mens) room - pick your variation on lady or man. The facilities. 'I'm going to use the john' is another variation.

Heh, I like the one-and-a-quarter-bath.

I'm afraid I won't be able to bring myself to say "power room", "little girls' room" or "john" (the latter I could do if it was pretty casual circumstances, I suppose). Yep, "the facilities" sounds best, and I do actually tend to say "the ladeez" (with appropriate intonation) when referring to the public kind.

I can't say I've NEVER heard the word "toilet" used to refer to the room, but it's rare enough to be eccentric. Or possibly foreign--a term used by non-US-natives, or by people using non-US terms in order to sound cosmopolitan.

The room is generally (mis)named "bathroom", even when there's no bathing facilities. Some dialects use "washroom" or "lavatory". All three terms will be understood pretty much all across the US.

"Toilet" is strictly and specifically the porcelain chair, which US-folk try to ignore whenever possible. It's all part of the US cultural insanity regarding ANY kind of below-the-waist bodily function.

"Restroom" is common, too, I find, though more often used in public places than in someone's home.

Ah, yes. I missed that one. It's probably the *most* common term for a public facility. Lavatory, too, is used more for public plumbing than residential.

Huh, that's interesting about using lavatory for the more public kind of facility. Yep, "restrooms" seems to be pretty international terminology for public facilities as well. Probably invented for train stations and all that.

This is precisely why one of my friends asks for directions to the Euphemism.

Hee, I like that one.

So do I, and I've actually heard it used, though I've forgotten where and when.

i got a talking to for using the word toilet in earshot of a phone agent.... lame

::eyeroll::

People are strange.

American English: Where's the warshroom?
Australian English as Second Language: What?
AE: The warshroom? I need the warshroom.
AESL: I don't know what you mean.
AE: Don't you have a warshroom?
Me: She means the toilet.
AESL: Oh! It's over there.

*snortle snortle*

I might have gotten it if an obviously-American said "bathroom", but yeah, that would have gotten me as well.

When I was in my last year of school, we had an exchange student from Arizona in our class. I asked her what she planned to study at university. She said, "La!" I was like, "La?" "Yep, la! And mebbe one day ah'll be a female judge in my state!" Sure enough, she was off to law school the next year.

Washroom is generally Canadian. Bathroom (even sans bathtub or shower) is American. Restroom is the public version of same, to the point where those roadside places with picnic tables and public restrooms are called rest areas. Possibly because you really do rest there in addition to going to the bathroom [g].

I've never in my whole life called the whole room the toilet. It sounds -- bizarre -- to my American ears.

Agreed. It sounds like you might as well say, "I need to expose my genitals and expel waste" when you talk about the toilet (as opposed to the Euphamism).

Well, yes...? I mean, does anyone seriously "powder their noses" these days? Or bathe in the bathroom? Or rest in the restroom? Heh.

Probably just as well I'm not intending to visit the US again until you get rid of your Chief Moron and hopefully the stupid fingerprinting regime for all ~~criminals~~ tourists entering the country. :-)

Chief Moron will be gone January 21st. Inauguration Day of the New Chief, who I pray will be Obama.

Speed the day! :-)

WE WON!

Or at least the bathroom [g].

I guess we call it that because in most houses there's nothing else in there. Just a toilet. When you come out of the toilet you go next door to the bathroom to wash your hands. It is very rare in this country to find the main toilet actually inside the bathroom - at least in a modern house anyway - it is almost always a separate room (hence "littlest room" as a euphemism).

Unless it's an en-suite - which usually contains a toilet, a washbasin/vanity unit and a shower. But that's part of somebody's bedroom, so you wouldn't expect guests to use it.

The toilet isn't in the same room as the sink??? I would not like that. At all.

Even the fanciest houses here don't have a separate room for the porcelain throne all by itself. The only place I've ever run across that is in England, in very old-fashioned B&Bs, and I always assumed it was a function of separating out the facilities in a shared bathroom to make them more accessible to the folks who were using it.

When I lived in San Francisco in a residence club the porcelain god had its own nothing-else-in-it room. But it depended on which building you were in - some of the rooms had ensuite entire bathrooms; most had everything communal, though only one occupant at a time.

What Jackie said about it being fairly common that the toilet being off in a little room by itself. So you have the wee room, public toilets/restroom, and "toilet blocks" in schools, campgrounds and sports grounds - the latter often has shower and change facilities as well, and I think the word there has more emerged from the old sense of "doing one's toilet".

That is just -- odd. Really odd. Sorry [g].

My personal variation on the phrase is "the room of rest."

:)

Well, I suppose it's restful being able to get the appropriate kind of, er, physical relief when needed. :-)

Oh, dear; now you've got me hearing the old Alka-Seltzer theme song:
"Plop, plop, fizz, fizz; oh, what a relief it is."

[weg]

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