Writer's choice: A Venetian boatman

[hypatia-66.livejournal.com]

Speaker of Venetian dialect, amateur gondolier, this man's talents are endless

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15589116

Illya, gondoliere straordinario

Comments

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting for the WC!

[hypatia-66.livejournal.com]

Are you suggesting I write on toilet walls? Never!
I'm smiling, of course - perhaps you don't use that abbreviation as much as we do.

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

LOL! Water closet (i.e.WC) isn't a term used here at all. Some males will used the word 'head' with the term having its origins in the Navy. Some calle it the 'john.' Rarely you'll hear someone (including me) use the term 'loo'. Pretty much everyone refers to it as the 'bathroom.'

[hypatia-66.livejournal.com]

I expect we could go too far in any discussion of words for these places, but anyway... We don't use john or head (though sailors might), nor bathroom very often, and definitely not rest room, which is regarded as absurdly mealy-mouthed here.

In the UK, WC is a rather formal description but understood by all. Privy is rarely used now. Lav used to be quite common, though a little low class. Lavatory isn't used much in speech. Loo is still common - it's either a diminutive of lavatory or a corruption of the French 'lieu', meaning place. It's also thought to come from a disagreeable habit (in Scotland, I believe) of casting the contents of a chamber pot out of high tenement windows, calling a warning 'gardy loo!', which is also a corruption from French, and means 'look out below'.

Toilet is very common though it used to be seen as a very non-U word - i.e used by the lower middle class. In Scotland they sometimes call it 'the necessary' or nettie.

Apart from vulgarities like bog and other more accurate descriptions (unrepeatable here), they are all euphemisms - they often just mean a place for washing. All such words need to be used with care!