Tell me the word you most commonly use to refer to a toilet bowl. Popular alternatives seem to be crapper, head, loo, and commode.
Then tell me when you were born and where you spent your childhood.
I’ll go first: toilet, 1969, Ohio.
I can also answer for my father, who got me thinking about this: 1928, West Virginia, commode.
toilet, 1973, Tennessee
Toilet, 1982, Tennessee
toilet, 1973, Toronto
toilet, 1963, georgia
Toilet, 1979, Florida.
Toilet, 1985, Nova Scotia.
Toilet, 1958, Ontario.
Toilet, 1982, Houston.
Everyone else in my family calls them toilets except for:
My grandfather: Commode, 1920-something, Oklahoma City.
My grandmother: Commode, 1920-something, some farm in Arkansas.
toilet, 1963, Southern California
toilet at home, loo at school, water closet when joking. 1985, Australia.
Toilet, Kentucky, 1977.
(Or commode)
throne, 1974, Illinois
Jacks, 1979, Dublin, Ireland.
I think this is a distinct Dublin, maybe Irish, word.
London, 1967
Polite society: loo
At work: toilet
Informally: bog
WC.
THis is Dutch, but you all know what I mean, don’t you?
toilet, 1968, New York State
among casual company now: potty
toilet, 1982, Ohio
but my grandma is
pot, 1920, North Dakota
Toilet, 1955, New Jersey (USA)
Toilet, 1986, southern Maryland (dc area)/Southern California.
My pot and my toilet are two very different things, btw.