Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 10:11:59 -0500
From: Tom Creswell creswell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CROWN.NET
Subject: Re: Lavatory = ?
-- [ From: Tom Creswell * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] --
I am surprised to learn that none of those responding to this thread use the
terms I have usd all my life. Born in 1920 and raised on south side Chicago
, for me, the hands and face washing utility in what we always called the
BATHROOMis a WASHBOWL.
The dishwashing utility in the kitchen usually was referred to simply as
the SINK, the context usually making clear that it was the facility in the
kitchen--"Put the dishes in the sink, when you're finished." But we also
had the idiom "Threw everything in but the kitchen sink."Downstairs in the
basement was a LAUNDRY TUB.
The euphemisms we learned as children for excretory acts were "NUMBER 1" and
"NUMBER 2." I leave it to those of you who learned other terms to guess
which act each refers to. In the Catholic boys school I attended, we asked
permission to "Leave the room," If permission was granted we went to the
"boys bathroom .":
Tom Creswell