Ok, so...a commode...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Somehow I’ve gone the last 45 years knowing commode was another word for toilet.

So I was surprised to find an advertisement for a 6-drawer commode.

All I could think of was maybe it was a piece of bathroom furniture.

Apparantly, it’s a 6-drawer chest-type thing, has nothing to do with the bathroom, and has never been a word synonymous with toilet.
So…

:smack::smack::smack::smack:

How the hell did this happen? Any other words it took you decades to figure out? :stuck_out_tongue: And why the HELL do I swear my grandmother regularly said she had to use the commode… WTF? Did I imagine that? Or was she really just rummaging around for socks?
And, just to make me feel stupider, a search for a second opinion on the word reveals it DOES mean toilet…so I feel a little less stupid about the last 45 years, but doubly stupid over the last 10 minutes or so. :p:p

2

Well, would you look at that? I always thought of a commode as the second to third definitions, so it’s not wrong. It’s just not the only thing. Apparently it’s also a kind of hat!

3

If I remember right, (and that’s a big if,) a commode is a curved chest. it’s also a toilet.
Once in our writing group a guy was really proud of his science fiction story with the futuristic wording com mode depicting a means of communication. I had to point it out for his own good.

4

Then meaning No. 2 (heh heh. heh heh.) explains how the word was transferred from wood to porcelain.

5

A hat!! And a science-fiction reference! I feel so much better, thank you :smiley:

6

Note that “commode” is from the Latin commodus, meaning “convenient,” and that a public toilet is sometimes called a “convenience.”

7

Ah, yes…Motel of the Mysteries.

8

I no longer need to be embarrassed that I spent much of my Twenties with my head in a commode after a long night of irresponsible drinking. It’s a party hat!

9

I understood the two connotations are related. The curved cabinet was originally developed to hold a chamber pot.

10

Welp, it’s time for my morning constitutional, care to join me?

11

Wait, that was some lady’s hat? Now I feel really bad.

12

Well, whatever you do, don’t get them mixed up.

13

I’ll try to keep that in mind in the future.

Slinks out of room, whistling the “I didn’t do it” song

14

I seem to recall a couple of years ago, right after the economy tanked, a huge deal was made about the CEO of Merrill Lynch buying a $35,000 commode for his office, most people thinking of course, that it was a toilet.

It turned out to actually be an antique chest of drawers.

Ahh, here’s a story on it.

http://consumerist.com/2009/01/thains-35000-commode-on-legs-actually-chest-of-drawers.html

15

Fun fact: If it’s large enough to have six drawers, you could call it a commodious commode.

16

Actually, it’s very hard to find a formal English word for the porcelain fixture that doesn’t have an original meaning that amounts to a euphemism.

“commode” – the cabinet in which the chamber pot was kept

“toilet” – the hygiene, beauty, and clothing regime or process that one goes through to prepare for the day or the entire room where that happens

“WC” – the water closet is the curved-pipe-and-standing-water apparatus that blocks odors from drifting back into the room

“lavatory” – is a washbasin, so it’s really the sink, not the crapper

17

I believe that Cecil did an article (maybe the one on Thomas Crapper?) in which he stated that the porcelain device had no name that was not a euphemism and therefore neither did the room that held it.