# AE - toilet



## kirsitn

Having read through the whole toilet euphemism thread, I'm still wondering what an AE speaker would call a room where there's just a toilet (and possibly, but not necessarily, a sink). Would you still call it a bathroom even though there's no bathtub or shower?


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## cuchuflete

Hi kirsitn,

In real estate listings, such rooms are called "half baths" or "half bathrooms".


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## kirsitn

Fascinating! So if an apartment has a bathroom without a toilet and a separate toilet with just a sink, it would be called "bathroom and half bathroom" instead of "bathroom with separate toilet"?


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## cuchuflete

kirsitn said:


> Fascinating! So if an apartment has a bathroom without a toilet and a separate toilet with just a sink, it would be called "bathroom and half bathroom" instead of "bathroom with separate toilet"?



I'm not sure I follow you here.  AE terminology is simple.

1) Bathroom with sink, toilet, and either a bathtub or shower or combination bathtub/shower:  Full bathroom, commonly just called a bathroom.

2) Bathroom with toilet and sink, but no shower or tub: half bath.

I am not familiar with a bathroom without a toilet.


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## rusita preciosa

kirsitn said:


> Fascinating! So if an apartment has a bathroom without a toilet and a separate toilet with just a sink, it would be called "bathroom and half bathroom" instead of "bathroom with separate toilet"?


In the US I have never seen European-style "separate" bathrooms you describe. May be they used to be in old buildings somewhere in Manhattan, but I would assume people converted them to the more familiar "full baths" and "half-baths" as they renovated.

EDIT: Just thought of something: in nicer hotels and bigger houses sometimes there is a separate room just for the toilet inside the bathroom. You have to go through the bathroom to open the door to that room. I'm not sure they have a separate name because it is still a part of a large bathroom.


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## Nunty

I never saw the toilet-less shower/bath rooms (that are common in Israel) in the US. They call everything a bathroom, with the distinctions that cuchu made.


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## kirsitn

cuchuflete said:


> I am not familiar with a bathroom without a toilet.



In Norway (and perhaps also elsewhere in Europe?) it's not uncommon to have the toilet and the shower in separate rooms. In my apartment the bathroom has a shower, sink and washing machine, but no toilet. The toilet is in a separate room next to the bathroom. While having a small sink together with the toilet takes up a bit extra space, I find it very practical to still be able to use the toilet while somebody else is taking a shower.


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## rusita preciosa

Exactly! That's the difference between European and American bathrooms.


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## pickarooney

Toilet-less bathrooms are uncommon in Ireland, in my experience, and ubiquitous in Holland and France, so it's not a straightforward European/American cultural divide. 
Terminologically speaking though, there is no confusion, the bath (or shower) is in the bathroom and the toilet is in the toilet. 

What do USians call the individual stalls in a public 'restroom' - cubicles? would it be strange to use the same word for the similar structure in a residential house?


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## tannen2004

pickarooney said:


> What do USians call the individual stalls in a public 'restroom' - cubicles? would it be strange to use the same word for the similar structure in a residential house?



We call them "stalls".  It would be a bit odd to talk about that in a house.  We really only have two options a "(full) bathroom" (toilet, sink, tub/shower) and "half bath" (toilet and sink).

I know you want to find something, but it really doesn't exist in common usage. (You might find someone, somewhere with a layout that's outside of the norm, but even then, whatever they call their "rooms" is going to be specific to their situation and not used in common, everyday English.)


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## natkretep

Would an estate agent in the USA advertise a property as having, say, 2½ bathrooms then, with the assumption that there is only one ½ bathroom (rather than one full and 3 halves)?


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## tannen2004

Yes.  If there was 1 full and 3 halves you'd probably see something like "1 bath, 3 half baths".  (That would be unusual to see.  Most houses in the US have more full baths than half baths, although it's not uncommon for them to have more than one half bath if it's a multi-story house.)


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## abenr

kirsitn said:


> Having read through the whole toilet euphemism thread, I'm still wondering what an AE speaker would call a room where there's just a toilet (and possibly, but not necessarily, a sink). Would you still call it a bathroom even though there's no bathtub or shower?



I have a room with a toilet and a sink only.  In the real estate listing, it was called a "powder room."  Yes, it's the same as what is more frequently termed a half bath.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

pickarooney said:


> What do *USians*  call the individual stalls in a public 'restroom' - cubicles?


 
As noted above, we call them "stalls". More to the point, though, we do not call ourselves "USians". The English-language name for people from the United States is "Americans", just as the English-language name for people from France is "the French", and not "RFians".



			
				natkretep said:
			
		

> Would an estate agent in the USA advertise a property as having, say, 2½ bathrooms then, with the assumption that there is only one ½ bathroom (rather than one full and 3 halves)?


Yes.  In the second situation, the advertisement would probably say "1 full, 3 half baths."


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## bluegiraffe

pickarooney said:


> Toilet-less bathrooms are uncommon in Ireland, in my experience, and ubiquitous in Holland and France, so it's not a straightforward European/American cultural divide.


 
There are a lot of seperate toilet/bathrooms in the UK.  They tend to be in older houses but some new houses have them too.  We also have shower rooms which is just a room with a shower and nothing else.


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## kirsitn

What about the oldfashioned outhouse toilet - would you call that a bathroom as well even though there's no water available?


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## abenr

kirsitn said:


> What about the oldfashioned outhouse toilet - would you call that a bathroom as well even though there's no water available?



In AE it would be called an outhouse.


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## bluegiraffe

In BE it would be an outhouse or a privvy.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

The word "privy" for that sort of facility might also be heard in the US, especially from older, rural speakers.


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## cuchuflete

If you get rustic enough, you may call it a half-moon house.  Real estate agents (BE:estate agents) would probably call it a powder room annex, but they are known for taking more liberties with the language than sportswriters or PC types.


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## kirsitn

So if you were at a beach or camping site and wanted to know whether or not there was any alternative to just going behind a tree, would you then say "Do you know if there's a bathroom here?"/"Do you know if there's an outhouse here?" or something else?


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## cuchuflete

pickarooney said:


> What do USians call the individual stalls in a public 'restroom' - cubicles? would it be strange to use the same word for the similar structure in a residential house?



I've never met one of those.  Are they related to Irisians?  Francians?  

Stalls in a public restroom or bathroom are called stalls.  They are also called cubicles.  
Typically they lack bathtubs and showers.


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## cuchuflete

kirsitn said:


> So if you were at a beach or camping site and wanted to know whether or not there was any alternative to just going behind a tree, would you then say "Do you know if there's a bathroom here?"/"Do you know if there's an outhouse here?" or something else?



Normal humans would ask those questions.  Bureaucrats would euphemize and call them "facilities".


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## kirsitn

cuchuflete said:


> Normal humans would ask those questions.  Bureaucrats would euphemize and call them "facilities".



But under no circumstances would you ask "Do you know if there's a toilet here?"?


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## Nunty

Not in the US. You would ask if there is a bathroom or a restroom or "facilities" or a washroom.


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## kirsitn

Nunty said:


> Not in the US. You would ask if there is a bathroom or a restroom or "facilities" or a washroom.



Even though you were out in the woods and would not expect to find any other kind of toilet than the outhouse version?


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## cuchuflete

kirsitn said:


> But under no circumstances would you ask "Do you know if there's a toilet here?"?


 Well, a categorical "no" might be dangerous with 300+ million residents.  We have all sorts of strange things happen. 

It would be highly unusual for a potential user to ask about toilets, but some signs might say "Public toilets".


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## Nunty

Yes. I know it is ridiculous to non-Americans, but most people in the US have a very strong aversion to saying _toilet_. I think my personal choice would be _restroom_, though anywhere else in the world I would say _toilet_.


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## abenr

kirsitn said:


> Even though you were out in the woods and would not expect to find any other kind of toilet than the outhouse version?



In AE we clearly prefer to bathe or to rest rather than to toil.  We'd ask if there were a bathroom or rest room nearby.


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## kirsitn

Nunty said:


> Yes. I know it is ridiculous to non-Americans, but most people in the US have a very strong aversion to saying _toilet_. I think my personal choice would be _restroom_, though anywhere else in the world I would say _toilet_.



I must say I find the idea of resting in a smelly outhouse rather more repulsive than using the word toilet.


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## foxfirebrand

In spoken AE, anything with a toilet in it can be called a bathroom-- a toilet being an appliance with running water, not an outhouse or latrine covered by a board with a hole in it.  In a restaurant or bar you go to the bathroom with no expectation of seeing a bath or shower there.

"Half bath" is realtor-speak for the sake of precision and truth-in-advertising.


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## kirsitn

foxfirebrand said:


> a toilet being an appliance with running water, not an outhouse or latrine covered by a board with a hole in it.



What about the chemical ones that you find on buses, trains etc. - does that also qualify as a bathroom?


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## rusita preciosa

Nunty said:


> Yes. I know it is ridiculous to non-Americans, but most people in the US have a very strong aversion to saying _toilet_. I think my personal choice would be _restroom_, though anywhere else in the world I would say _toilet_.


 I don't think the aversion is the reason. In AE the word *toilet* has a specific meaning (means the device itself / the WC). So people use separate words for the room where it is located.


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## cuchuflete

rusita preciosa said:


> I don't think the aversion is the reason. In AE the word *toilet* has a specific meaning (means the device itself / the WC). So people use separate words for the room where it is located.



That is very logical.  Unfortunately, it is wrong.  In some places, as mentioned above,
public signs for bathrooms use the word toilet to describe the rooms, which may have toilets, sinks, and even showers in them.


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## foxfirebrand

kirsitn said:


> What about the chemical ones that you find on buses, trains etc. - does that also qualify as a bathroom?



No-- those are port-a-potties.  I'm dead serious!

Wait, I got fixated on the "etc" part of your question, and the last time I used the can on an airplane, it had flushing action-- in which case I guess it was a toilet.  

To me "chemical toilet" implies a closed tank like the cesspit in an outhouse-- and that would slosh around on a vehicle or plane.

About the aversion to calling the _room_ by the same name as the toilet in it.  We have the phrase "in the toilet" to imply ruin, disgrace or a fallen situation.

"My career is in the toilet."

Since you enter the room, there may be an unconscious aversion to an image that one is going _into_ a toilet.  _Toilet_ in the sense of a public facility is a much older word than restroom, and I believe it was borrowed from the French for nicety's sake, back at a time when people with a normal education knew it had a much more genteel meaning in the civilized world.  Toilets in those days had attendants who oversaw your post-defecatory ablutions and handed you a towel, in exchange for a _pourboir_-- now you can't get much more genteel than that!

Also note that the bathroom in a private dwelling is never called a toilet.


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## kirsitn

foxfirebrand said:


> Wait, I got fixated on the "etc" part of your question, and the last time I used the can on an airplane, it had flushing action-- in which case I guess it was a toilet.
> 
> To me "chemical toilet" implies a closed tank like the cesspit in an outhouse-- and that would slosh around on a vehicle or plane.



Well, the liquid that is used for flushing in airplane toilets is definitely something more chemical than water (chemical as in inedible stuff, not as in made of chemical elements...). 

And I'm pretty certain that bus toilets have a closed tank which is emptied at regular intervals.


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## Infininja

Most posted signs would say 'restrooms' and occasionally 'public toilets,' in my experience. Most people, when conversing, would ask where the _bathroom_ is, although I wouldn't be surprised to hear myself ask where I can find a toilet (maybe I just don't have the aversions some other people do).

I don't think I would ever talk about an outhouse, unless I already had knowledge that's the only option available or I was in a *very* remote area.

The 'half bath' on the first floor is just referred to as a bathroom. The room with just a toilet at my dad's house is actually still inside of the bathroom. There's no special name for it.

I don't think I've ever asked for a washroom, and I'd probably only use 'facilities' if I was being facetious. Some polite people will say "I have to use the facilities" to excuse themselves from a conversation and head to the bathroom.


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## cuchuflete

Since we seem to be cataloging terms for the crapper, my barn has a three seater.

If you tell anyone in a rural part of the U.S. that you have a three-seater (with or without hyphen!) in the barn, they will understand just what you mean.  They will not think of a motor vehicle.


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## Infininja

Unfortunately, I don''t know what you mean. Is that an outhouse but set in a barn?


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## capials

Euphemism reigns supreme as does legpulling here.
 Brevity is the soul of wit.


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## Infininja

Mmk... I don't see the humor.


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## foxfirebrand

kirsitn said:


> Well, the liquid that is used for flushing in airplane toilets is definitely something more chemical than water (chemical as in inedible stuff, not as in made of chemical elements...).
> 
> And I'm pretty certain that bus toilets have a closed tank which is emptied at regular intervals.



Yes, so they are toilets because the part you sit on is separated from the tank by some drainpipe, and it flushes.  

In port-a-potties, which look like opaque phone booths, you open the lid and there's the tank a couple feet below the opening, as open as the pit in an outhouse.


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## cuchuflete

Infininja said:


> Mmk... I don't see the humor.



What humor?  It is called a three-seater because—now don't look for deep, hidden metaphysical, allegorical or even governmental reasons here—it has three seats.  That means that on a cold winter night, two adults and one child can crap communally without having to trudge through the snow.


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## __Shifty__

In my experience, a room with just a toilet and sink would be known as a 'Powder Room'.


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## Infininja

cuchuflete said:


> What humor?  It is called a three-seater because—now don't look for deep, hidden metaphysical, allegorical or even governmental reasons here—it has three seats.  That means that on a cold winter night, two adults and one child can crap communally without having to trudge through the snow.



Capials made it sound like a joke. Thanks, that makes a lot more sense.


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## natkretep

foxfirebrand said:


> In port-a-potties, which look like opaque phone booths, you open the lid and there's the tank a couple feet below the opening, as open as the pit in an outhouse.



Port-a-potties! Never heard of those. Is this the same as a _porterloo _or _portaloo_ - temporary toilets, usually plastic (rubber?) boxes, often found in construction sites or some fair grounds? But these have normal side-swinging doors rather than lids, so they are probably not the same thing. What are porterloos called in the US?


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## lablady

natkretep said:
			
		

> What are porterloos called in the US?


 
These are porta-potties. It sounds to me like they are the same as your porterloos/portaloos. 

Edit: To answer the original question: a bathroom with only a toilet and a sink is a half-bath when I'm speaking to my real estate friends, a powder room when I'm speaking to my little old lady friends, and just a bathroom when I'm speaking to everyone else. 

By the way Mr. Cuchu,... my father calls his indoor bathroom a "one-holer". I guess that's evidence that I come from _very rural_ farm stock, and that old habits are hard to break even when one becomes "citified".


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## natkretep

Thanks, lablady.  They're the same then! I was puzzled by foxfirebrand's refer to lids - maybe the reference is to seat covers.


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## lablady

natkretep said:


> Thanks, lablady.  They're the same then! I was puzzled by foxfirebrand's refer to lids - maybe the reference is to seat covers.


That's right, the lid is a seat cover. Here's a picture of the inside of a porta-potty where you can see that the lid is raised.

Oh, the things we discuss on this forum.


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## foxfirebrand

natkretep said:


> Port-a-potties! Never heard of those. Is this the same as a _porterloo _or _portaloo_ - temporary toilets, usually plastic (rubber?) boxes, often found in construction sites or some fair grounds? But these have normal side-swinging doors rather than lids, so they are probably not the same thing. What are porterloos called in the US?


You've described them perfectly, and yes, they have doors that swing open.  The lid I was referring to was the lid on the...uh, throne itself.  Both the seat and the lid are on a hinge so they can be lifted so that you can urinate from a standing position without spattering the seat.


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## Forero

Another word for half bath is "lavatory". Technically that would just be a sink, but Americans expect the other thing in there too.


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## natkretep

Forero said:


> Another word for half bath is "lavatory". Technically that would just be a sink, but Americans expect the other thing in there too.


 
Interesting. I thought this was a BrE word. That is the word that you find in some planes, and there is also the phrase 'lavatorial humour' (I don't know whether it is used in AmE) to refer to humour pertaining to excretion.


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## Forero

We call that "bathroom humor".


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## Cagey

It seems to me that when we were young and easily embarrassed, the word we used at school was _lavatory_ as it was regarded as more discrete than _bathroom_ and possibly even _restroom_.   _Restroom_ had come to be not a euphemism but a synonym.   We would have avoided saying _toilet_, for sure. 

There is an American blog on bathroom graffiti called The Language of Lavatory. 

(I have never heard of "lavatorial humor", or seen "lavatorial" used as an adjective at all.)


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## pickarooney

foxfirebrand said:


> Toilets in those days had attendants who oversaw your post-defecatory ablutions and handed you a towel, in exchange for a _pourboir_-- now you can't get much more genteel than that!



This practice is back in vogue (or at least it was two years ago) in Dublin. You can't get more cringeworthy than it, to be honest. 
'Powder room' would probably have a rather different interpretation there too.

'Lavatory', although it refers specifically to the toilet, means 'place of washing', does it not?


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## Copyright

pickarooney said:


> This practice is back in vogue (or at least it was two years ago) in Dublin. You can't get more cringeworthy than it, to be honest.
> 'Powder room' would probably have a rather different interpretation there too.



Hard to imagine there being a toilet thread and my not jumping right it, as it were. But this is the second time I've seen this mentioned and I thought I would just let everyone know that the practice is alive and well and paying in Hong Kong.

Not in all restrooms, but certainly in the hotels and many of the shopping centres. There's no exchange -- you wash your hands, you're handed a towel (or paper towels in more down-market loos) -- and you tip or not as you like, either directly or sometimes in a small dish on the counter. In some of the fancier places, you'll find all sorts of toiletries for your use as well. 

Going more rural, back to cuchuflete's barn and his three-seater, the plywood loos that the Seabees built us years all had three seats, although we called them three-holers. Underneath were 55-gallon drums cut in half with handles welded on. Emptying them were the elite members of the Honey-Bucket Brigade. 

What I now wonder is why three was the magic number?


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## capials

the answer is POWDER ROOM !
It is intended for guests in N.America;


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## Pedro y La Torre

An uneducated response perhaps, but I'd call them all bathrooms to be honest.


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## Hitchhiker

In American English the word "toilet" is somewhat avoided. It's similar to European countries that avoid their native word for toilet and prefer to use "wc".

In American English the term "water closet" is generally only used for old fashioned toilets that have the water tank overhead. These are sometimes installed these days for style. 

I grew up Mennonite, without running water at home. We had an outhouse and the bathtub was in the kitchen. This was because the water well next the kitchen porch and the water could be heated in the kitchen and the stove heated the room.

In general speech, a bathroom with a toilet and a sink and no shower or bathtub is a powder room. A bathroom with a toilet, a sink and shower used to be called a half bath. This changed to full bath, like bathrooms with a bathtub, mainly for tax purposes. The tax assessor says they count the number of fixtures in the bathroom, so a shower now counts the same as as a bathtub.


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## foxfirebrand

Copyright said:


> Going more rural, back to cuchuflete's barn and his three-seater, the plywood loos that the Seabees built us years all had three seats, although we called them three-holers. Underneath were 55-gallon drums cut in half with handles welded on. Emptying them were the elite members of the Honey-Bucket Brigade



Emptying them?  Didn't they pour a gallon or so of diesel fuel in em and burn the contents?  If memory serves me, the residue wasn't appreciable enough to empty.

To me a honey bucket implies that the waste matter is poured onto crop fields.  I guess it's also a euphemism for a chamberpot, like Aristophanes's "thunder mug."  

I know your comment about the "elites of the honey-bucket brigade" was facetions-- of course shit-burning detail was a punishment.  Ironically, most of the people who seemed eternally exempt from it were the brown-nosers.

How do you come to know about such things?  Were they used for years and years after the war?


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## cuchuflete

> I'm still wondering what an AE speaker would call a room where there's just a toilet (and possibly, but not necessarily, a sink). Would you still call it a bathroom even though there's no bathtub or shower?




<I shall now step behind the...errr...latrine, and put on the earth-toned moderator wig, cape, and pointy hat with corks hanging from the brim.  There.

Ready?  OK.


*Please be so kind as to return to the thread topic.

Thanks.*


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