Date:  Tue, 26 Mar 1996 12:47:41 -0500

From:  "Salikoko S. Mufwene" <s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UCHICAGO.EDU>

Subject: Re: Lavatory = ?



At 10:11 AM 3/26/96, Tom Creswell wrote:

>

>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.



When I was doing field work on the Sea Islands near Charleston, SC, I

sometimes spent the night in one of the local Econolodge motels. The toilet

had two flush handles, one for "simple waste" and the other for "complex

waste". I thought that the opposition was stated inadequately, though one

may choose to interpret "complex" in the sense of 'combination'.



Sali.



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Salikoko S. Mufwene            s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu

University of Chicago           312-702-8531; FAX 312-702-9861

Department of Linguistics

1010 East 59th Street

Chicago, IL 60637

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