In Australian houses the toilet is often in a room by itself - no basin, no cabinets of lotions, no mirror. If you’re going to the toilet room, your choice of alternative activities is severely limited. The toilet room is usually located near or next to the bathroom which contains all those other things that you find in an American bathroom, but no toilet. En suite bathrooms are more likely to include a toilet fixture than the main bathroom in the house.
Once you manage to make the host understand that you want to use the facilities, they’ll probably say something like “Toilet’s at the top of the stairs, turn left and it’s straight ahead. Bathroom’s on your right on your way out”. That way you know where to go, and where to go wash your hands afterwards.
Some Americans–or maybe it’s not just Americans–are intensely embarrassed about anything to do with elimination. This is undoubtedly why the sign over that aisle of a grocery store heralds the presence of “bath tissue” rather than toilet paper. I have never, ever heard anyone refer to TP as bath tissue in ordinary conversation, but, obviously, someone must have felt it was necessary to come up with that term for it.
On the other hand I have definitely heard people come up with euphemisms for excretion that border on the surreal. “Going to the bathroom” or “using the bathroom” aren’t that bad in my opinion; they’ve pretty much lost their function as euphemisms and now are virtually equivalent to urination or defecation. But once somebody on here posted their concerns about driving across country with a cat, and how the cat might “use the bathroom” in the car!
I don’t think it’s so much a matter of embarrassment. What we really need to know is where to find the room in which the toilet resides. Once we know that, finding the toilet within that room is a cinch.
Me three. I’ve never heard a single fellow American refer to it as toilet either. It would be considered mildly tacky to ask where the toilet is, and also a bit odd. Akin to someone asking “where is your couch”? instead of something like “would you mind if I sat down”? Or “where is your sink” instead of “may I have a drink of water”?
In school my blackboards were green, the football we played used neither feet nor balls, butterflies aren’t made out of butter nor are ladybugs ladies. Did you have a point or were you just being nonsensically literal-minded?
Where are you from? “Het up” is something people say up this aways (see page 7for an example in a NH newspaper), and we’re about as far from the south as you can get. It means “all upset.” Example: Oh ayuh, the Mrs got all het up when she realized I ate the pie for breakfast this morning."
Only because you’ve never offended a man named John. This is part of family lore:
Grandma: […refers to the bathroom in some context as “the john”]
Great Uncle John, her brother: Don’t call it that! It’s rude. How would you like it if people used your name to mean something terrible? Like a sewer, maybe? “I’ve got to call a honey-sucker out here 'cause the Teresa’s full!”
My California born and raised wife almost always refers to it, at least in front of friends and family, as “the potty,” or she says something like “I need to go potty.” (I think she would use “bathroom” in front of strangers.)
Where I come from, only small children defecate or urinate in a potty, and if someone goes potty, they are going slightly insane.
Its kind of funny though. If someone is asking for the bathroom, you know the person is going to eliminate, not looking to bathe themselves or resting.
I believe it should be taken sarcastically. You might not pick up on the sarcasm in the context of that one sentence, but if you look over the forgotten-ny.com site, a lot of what the author is trying to capture is the old ways of doing things. He’s not real big on the modernization of things that were perfectly functional and could well be left alone.
I was at the University of East Anglia in about 1981 when a visiting American asked (in need-answer-fast tones) “Hey, where’s the john innis place?”. He was about this -><- close to getting directions to the nearby John Innes Institute, when he would have been told “Go out of here, across this field, turn left when you get to the road and it’s about half a mile away…”. :dubious:
Canada operates the same as the US, more or less, except that as pointed out, where you say “restroom” we say “washroom.” (My brother, after arriving at a university residence in London, asked for the “washroom.” After some confusion, he was shown to the laundry room.)
It’s not so much that it’s rude to ask for the toilet; it’s just that, since we don’t refer to the room as “the toilet,” it sounds as though you are being weirdly specific. It’s just a matter of idiomatic language; “Where is the toilet?” is an unusual question, and is therefore responded to unusually.
It’s also not a matter of class; I can’t even picture someone being purposely crass asking for the toilet. They’d ask for the shitter, or something. It’s not something we say, not because it’s rude but because it’s just not part of the language, any more than our cars have boots or bonnets.
It’s not about the implication itself. A bilingual Canadian would react to someone asking for les toilettes normally, the same way she would react to someone asking for the washroom, because that’s the idiomatic way to ask for it in each language.
(Incidentally, we call it “toilet paper,” not bath tissue. The signs/packaging might say bath tissue, but I’m trying to picture someone asking for “bath tissue,” even in a store, and failing.)
In a restaurant, the question for the maître d’ is: “Where’s the restroom?”
In the restaurant’s restroom, the question for the restroom attendant is: “Where’s the toliet?”
To CanvaShoes… I may very well ask for sink rather than “may I have a glass of water” - as in asking for the sink, I am serving myself, in asking for a glass of water, I am asking to be served, and this (a friends house) is not a restaurant. I would also be likely to ask “where do you keep your glasses”
For TheFlyingDutchman, back home in NZ it would not be uncommon (in a house) to ask for the bathroom with the intention of wanting to washup before a meal, after work or some such. In a house, if I asked for a bathroom, I would fully expect to be directed to a toiletless room.
On the Dessert / Sweets issue, have used both, as well as afters, pudding and more.
Have asked to use, toilet, facilities, bathroom, gents and in most places is considered normal.
Down the pub, if I specifically wanted to lay a cable I may well ask for the “throne room”, crapper, shitter or some such and would be directed appropriately, otherwise toilet would suffice.
Forgot to add, back home our house has a separate bathroom and toilet, neither has facilities for the other, unless you are the sort that is willing to pee in the tub.
Well if the case were. that you’d rather serve yourself, in America, it would come across more normal-American speaking, to just say "is it okay if I get some water? OR, where’s the kitchen?
The question "where do you keep your glasses, is not considered a question along the same lines as “where’s the kitchen OR where’s the sink” Glasses are usually put away in one of several cabinets, whereas once one GETS to the kitchen, where the sink is located is pretty darned obvious.
Same as "where is the toilet, once you GET to the bathroom, the toilet is pretty obvious.
The thing I always found funny is that the name of the room changes whether you are talking about a public or private establishment. At first, I thought it was just because a restroom is unlikely to have bathing facilities, but I’ve noticed the term is also used when a shower is present.
I also have encountered a separate toilet room, but only in motels. Specifically, it’s set up with the sink and stuff is out in the room. You go through a door to get to the shower room, and inside a smaller door in that room is the toilet room. So not only can one person take a shower while another is on the pot, but you also have a sink in your room for it’s other uses besides washing your hands after elimination.
