Here’s the recent Staff Report, which refers back to earlier Master-penned columns about the various terms used for That Room In Which We Excrete. Cecil comments, at one point, that the English language appears to have both euphemisms and vulgarities that refer to the room, but oddly there is no “correct” term.
This is such a deplorable hole in the collective English vocabulary that I think we should go about correcting it. (If this has been attempted in a previous thread, I have not found it but apologize nonetheless.)
To get the ball rolling, I suggest excretorium for the room. As for the device, urinal already appears to be doing part of the job; would fecenal work for the more general-purpose version?
Worthy of discussion? Or have I just taken a dump on the boards?
When they were young, my children used to call it the “toilet room”. If “toilet” is correct for the item of plumbing that you sit on or stand next to, then “toilet room” has to be right for the room containing the toilet.
One of Cecil’s points, I think, was that the term “toilet” derives from a French word meaning “dressing room,” and that use of the word to describe the porcelain device derives secondarily from its use to describe the room. That makes it a term derived from a euphemism.
I’m simply accepting the notion, for the sake of exploration, that that’s just not good enough, darn it. (I only used the word “toilet” in the OP title because I thought something like “Well, if we really need a correct term for the room in which we deposit urine and feces…” would be too long. In retrospect, it wouldn’t have been much longer than what I wrote.
I have always been fond of ‘water closet’ it appeals to my liking for steam punk =)
If I manage to buy the old family house back [google it, 108 north main street, perry new york. it is back on the market so I can feel safe that it is legit to post the address] I would so renovate the first floor water closet with a modern version of the victorian pull chain toilet, and redecorate in real steampunk high victorian … it would be SO freaking neat =)
And I would so put the old servant bell pull system back together =) I would have serious fun tablet weaving those ornate brocade pulls =) and the round ‘tower’ section of the library would so seriously have the heavy burgundy velvet drapes with lace sheers held back with heavy gold tasseled pulls … and a round oriental rug with a comfy pair of wing chairs and a ‘candlestick’ marble top table with one of the miscellaneous tiffany reading lamps on it. I can so see that in the winter with a fire on the hearth, and a pot of coffee with snacks, a cat in my lap and something spiffy on the telly =)
So is “vagina,” but today it’s considered an anatomical term. The current usage of “toilet” is to describe the device–it shouldn’t matter what it *used *to mean.
My evil dad went to college in the early 1940s, and there were still some outhouses around. His fraternity appointed him the Chairman of the Privy Council. That is, he was in charge of organizing night-time sortees to turn over outhouses. It was a pun between privy (outhouse) and Privy Council (a UK government financial body.)
A real estate joke of the time, when some houses had indoor plumbing and some didn’t, was to describe a house as “five rooms and a path.”
An excellent point. So, okay, just coming up with a term for the room, then. I still nominate “excretorium.” To-the-point, pulls no punches but probably wouldn’t be considered indecent by community standard.
(Plus it sounds so LATIN! Like it should be hooked up to an aqueduct. )
My service in the Navy was decades ago, but I’ve never quite managed to break the habit of using “head”. Back in the days of wooden ships one used the front or “head” of the ship near the bowsprit so the seas would wash the area clean. The Navy doesn’t have many sailing ships these days and does have indoor plumbing, but we sailors are all about tradition. For some reason my wife finds the term objectionable.
One possibility: comparing definitions 12b and 21 in Merriam-Webster? That could be especially problematic if your preferred turn of phrase is “hit the head”…
Not if you factor in 9a as it relates to the possible origin of 21 and consider another bathroom activity to which teenage boys are stereotypically prone.
There are three items that should be added to the list:
Crapper - supposedly invented by a Mr Crapper but in fact untrue.
E.C. - Earth Closet - this was the version that preceeded the W.C.
Toilette is one the words used in modern French for Toilet
My husband sometimes calls it “La Pisseria” (as in "Donde esta la pisseria?), but more often we call it, in honor of professional rasslin, The EXTREME Elimination Chamber!!
There was a Mr. Thomas J. Crapper, who did make some technical improvements to flush toilets and whose company’s name was once as common in the UK as “American Standard” in the US. However, “crap” and “crapper” were already in use before he was born.
I have used the modern version of one, and other than needing to make sure that you dont drip anything by accident it is better than a standard bedpan …
Several of the terms mentioned in this thread were already covered in Cecil’s older column, or Dex’s more recent one. “The necessary,” also mentioned therein, is the subject of a gag in the stage musical 1776. During the Civil War, the slit trenches, usually dug just outside of camp, in which soldiers relieved themselves were called “the sinks.”
I don’t think we really need a “correct” term today. For dealing with such a basic biological imperative, everyone knows what’s being discussed regardless of the term used.
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