Writer's choice: A Venetian boatman
Jan. 25th, 2020 07:52 pmSpeaker of Venetian dialect, amateur gondolier, this man's talents are endless
https://archiveofourown.org/works/15589116
Speaker of Venetian dialect, amateur gondolier, this man's talents are endless
https://archiveofourown.org/works/15589116
no subject
Date: 2020-01-26 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-26 10:27 pm (UTC)I'm smiling, of course - perhaps you don't use that abbreviation as much as we do.
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Date: 2020-01-26 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-27 08:03 am (UTC)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!