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KS
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 8:54 pm
Post subject: rest room - a lavatory or something else? |
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I am just wondering if a "rest room" can be anything else than a
"lavatory/toilet". Can it be a room where you rest (like a rest area?) or a
cloakroom, or is its meaning restricted to the water closet facility?
Thanks!
Kamil |
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the Omrud
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 8:56 pm
Post subject: Re: rest room - a lavatory or something else? |
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KS <ks@ks.pll> spake thusly:
| Quote: | I am just wondering if a "rest room" can be anything else than a
"lavatory/toilet". Can it be a room where you rest (like a rest area?) or a
cloakroom, or is its meaning restricted to the water closet facility?
Thanks!
|
Practice differs between English speaking areas. If I saw a room
labeled "rest room" in the UK I would expect it to be a place to
rest. If I saw a room labeled "bathroom", I would expect it to
contain a bath.
--
David
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Tony Cooper
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 9:35 pm
Post subject: Re: rest room - a lavatory or something else? |
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On Wed, 2 Nov 2005 14:54:01 +0100, "KS" <ks@ks.pll> wrote:
| Quote: | I am just wondering if a "rest room" can be anything else than a
"lavatory/toilet". Can it be a room where you rest (like a rest area?) or a
cloakroom, or is its meaning restricted to the water closet facility?
Thanks!
|
Any appearance or usage of "restroom" in the US has to do with a
toilet. There are no other applications for the word.
The only room designated for resting is a bedroom. A rest area is a
pull-off from an interstate or controlled access highway where the
driver can park, use the restroom, buy snacks and drinks from vending
machines, or take a nap in his car or truck.
--
Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL |
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Donna Richoux
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 9:44 pm
Post subject: Re: rest room - a lavatory or something else? |
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KS <ks@ks.pll> wrote:
| Quote: | I am just wondering if a "rest room" can be anything else than a
"lavatory/toilet".
|
In American English, a restroom usually has multiple sinks and toilets.
Picture:
http://www.sealyisd.com/images/Construction/girls%20restroom.jpg
If you're out in public, you can always ask for the restroom. In a home,
you would ask for a bathroom (which in AmE does not need a bathtub).
| Quote: | Can it be a room where you rest (like a rest area?)
|
Rarely. In very fancy restrooms, I have occasionally seen a couch/sofa
for someone to rest who is not feeling well.
No. I would interpret that as a place to leave coats.
| Quote: | or is its meaning restricted to the water closet facility?
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Yes. I don't think I've ever seen a room dedicated to resting. A
bedroom? A waiting room?
--
Best -- Donna Richoux |
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Lars Eighner
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 9:52 pm
Post subject: Re: rest room - a lavatory or something else? |
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In our last episode,
<bdjhm1p4buknke7cl30e1qjm48oci8df0u@4ax.com>,
the lovely and talented Tony Cooper
broadcast on alt.usage.english:
| Quote: | On Wed, 2 Nov 2005 14:54:01 +0100, "KS" <ks@ks.pll> wrote:
I am just wondering if a "rest room" can be anything else than a
"lavatory/toilet". Can it be a room where you rest (like a rest area?) or a
cloakroom, or is its meaning restricted to the water closet facility?
Thanks!
Any appearance or usage of "restroom" in the US has to do with a
toilet. There are no other applications for the word.
|
Right. A few such facilities, especially those for women, may
have a sofa or a few chairs, but judging from the few facilities
for men that I have seen with such appointments, these are
almost never used. Sometimes a room with an adjacent w.c.
is called a lounge. A lounge might be a place someone with a
headache could recline and close his eyes or where workers on
break might chat for a few moments, but it wouldn't be expected
that anyone would sleep there.
| Quote: | The only room designated for resting is a bedroom. A rest area is a
pull-off from an interstate or controlled access highway where the
driver can park, use the restroom, buy snacks and drinks from vending
machines, or take a nap in his car or truck.
|
--
Lars Eighner eighner@io.com http://www.larseighner.com/
I don't see posts from or threads started from googlegroups.
Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work
in the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say. --Sharon O'Brien |
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Don Phillipson
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 10:32 pm
Post subject: Re: rest room - a lavatory or something else? |
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"KS" <ks@ks.pll> wrote in message news:dkagbf$djj$1@atlantis.news.tpi.pl...
| Quote: | I am just wondering if a "rest room" can be anything else than a
"lavatory/toilet". Can it be a room where you rest (like a rest area?) or
a
cloakroom, or is its meaning restricted to the water closet facility?
|
The general problem is that all varieties of English
prefer euphemisms. Literally a lavatory is a place
where you wash, a toilet is a place where you arrange your
hair and finish dressing, a bathroom is where you wash all
over, and so on: and Britain has chosen bathroom and the
USA chose rest room (and both use toilet) as a general
euphemism for latrine. The main non-euphemism is WC = water
closet, which names the chief latrine appliance; this word
was also taken up in France as a quasi-euphemism (quasi-
since foreign.)
Local usage is our only reliable guide, but this does not
help book translators and similar language workers.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada) |
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Mike Lyle
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 11:06 pm
Post subject: Re: rest room - a lavatory or something else? |
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Donna Richoux wrote:
| Quote: | KS <ks@ks.pll> wrote:
[...]
or a
cloakroom,
No. I would interpret that as a place to leave coats.
[...] |
It's worth noting that in Br a cloakroom is often found in private
houses: it will have a hatrack, but also a loo and a washbasin. In my
last house, we called it the "utility room", as it also held the
washing machine and a shower "cube": a lavatory opened off it; but I
don't think that's typical.
In public places, the clue to look for is whether or not there are
separate ladies' and gentlemen's cloakrooms.
--
Mike. |
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Jim Lawton
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 11:09 pm
Post subject: Re: rest room - a lavatory or something else? |
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On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 13:56:18 GMT, the Omrud <usenet.omrud@gmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: | KS <ks@ks.pll> spake thusly:
I am just wondering if a "rest room" can be anything else than a
"lavatory/toilet". Can it be a room where you rest (like a rest area?) or a
cloakroom, or is its meaning restricted to the water closet facility?
Thanks!
Practice differs between English speaking areas. If I saw a room
labeled "rest room" in the UK I would expect it to be a place to
rest. If I saw a room labeled "bathroom", I would expect it to
contain a bath.
|
Although I wouldn't be surprised if it contained a lavatory, a wash basin, and a
shower, but no bath.
A room containing only a lavatory, or a lavatory and a basin, would never be
anything other than a lavatory, or "toilet" - a usage whiich my mother used to
describe as "lower middle class".
But I'm sure all these niceties have been discussed before, could one but be
bothered to Google.
--
Jim
the polymoth |
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the Omrud
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 11:57 pm
Post subject: Re: rest room - a lavatory or something else? |
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Don Phillipson <d.phillipson@ttrryytteell.com> spake thusly:
| Quote: | "KS" <ks@ks.pll> wrote in message news:dkagbf$djj$1@atlantis.news.tpi.pl...
I am just wondering if a "rest room" can be anything else than a
"lavatory/toilet". Can it be a room where you rest (like a rest area?) or
a cloakroom, or is its meaning restricted to the water closet facility?
The general problem is that all varieties of English
prefer euphemisms. Literally a lavatory is a place
where you wash, a toilet is a place where you arrange your
hair and finish dressing, a bathroom is where you wash all
over, and so on: and Britain has chosen bathroom
|
Oh no it hasn't. A UK bathroom must contain a bath or shower.
| Quote: | and the
USA chose rest room (and both use toilet) as a general
euphemism for latrine.
|
--
David
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Raymond S. Wise
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 1:06 am
Post subject: Re: rest room - a lavatory or something else? |
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Donna Richoux wrote:
| Quote: | KS <ks@ks.pll> wrote:
I am just wondering if a "rest room" can be anything else than a
"lavatory/toilet".
In American English, a restroom usually has multiple sinks and toilets.
Picture:
http://www.sealyisd.com/images/Construction/girls%20restroom.jpg
If you're out in public, you can always ask for the restroom. In a home,
you would ask for a bathroom (which in AmE does not need a bathtub).
Can it be a room where you rest (like a rest area?)
Rarely. In very fancy restrooms, I have occasionally seen a couch/sofa
for someone to rest who is not feeling well.
or a
cloakroom,
No. I would interpret that as a place to leave coats.
or is its meaning restricted to the water closet facility?
Yes. I don't think I've ever seen a room dedicated to resting. A
bedroom? A waiting room?
|
Yesterday's St. Paul Pioneer Press had an article about MinneNAPolis
PowerNap Suites in the Mall of America (which is in Bloomington,
Minnesota, not Minneapolis). The article referred to the rooms
available for napping (70 cents a minute, introductory special of 50
cents a minute) as "nap rooms."
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com |
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Chris Waigl
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 1:10 am
Post subject: Re: rest room - a lavatory or something else? |
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On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 15:44:59 +0100, Donna Richoux wrote:
I have told this story before, but in another newsgroup which has little
readership overlap with aue. I once had a controversy with one of my
closest American friends about whether there was a mirror in my bathroom.
I knew that there was one, but she denied this fact. We were at my
then-place at the moment, so I opened the bathroom door to settle the
dispute. She then denied that this was, indeed, my bathroom, despite its
being the only room in the flat that contained a bathtub. For her, my
bathroom was the toilet cubicle next door. Logically, I asked her what
she'd call the room-with-the-tub then. This gave her a short pause, after
which she settled on "washroom".
| Quote: | Rarely. In very fancy restrooms, I have occasionally seen a couch/sofa
for someone to rest who is not feeling well.
|
My secondary school had a room, a tiny unused office really, that
contained a couch for students to lie down on when they didn't feel well.
We didn't have an infirmary, which might otherwise have housed the rest
area.
Chris Waigl
--
blog: http://serendipity.lascribe.net/
eggcorns: http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/ |
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Chris Waigl
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 1:12 am
Post subject: Re: rest room - a lavatory or something else? |
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On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 19:10:20 +0100, Chris Waigl wrote:
| Quote: | I have told this story before, but in another newsgroup which has little
readership overlap with aue. I once had a controversy with one of my
closest American friends about whether there was a mirror in my bathroom.
I knew that there was one, but she denied this fact. We were at my
then-place at the moment, so I opened the bathroom door to settle the
^^^^^^^^ that time |
Those copy-and-paste errors are annoying.
CW
--
blog: http://serendipity.lascribe.net/
eggcorns: http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/ |
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brians@wsu.edu
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 3:01 am
Post subject: Re: rest room - a lavatory or something else? |
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Speaking of euphemisms, science fiction author Ursula Le Guin expressed
her exasperation with this sort of thing by inventing the word
"shitstool" for "toilet" in "The Dispossessed." All other English terms
are euphemisms. The British "water closet" is a particularly cute one
which has spread around the world. You will see toilets labeled "WC" in
all sorts of non-English-speaking places, even in facilities where the
only water is supplied by the users of the facilities.
My father used to sell plumbing, and I witnessed the embarrassment of
my Spanish teacher when she came into the hardware store and asked to
see a "lavatory" and he took her to the sinks. She wanted a toilet. In
my youth, school bathrooms were always called "lavatories."
Wonder where "loo" came from? The OED isn't much help:
[Etym. obscure.]
A privy, a lavatory. Also attrib. and Comb.
A. S. C. Ross's examination of possible sources in Blackw. Mag.
(1974) Oct. 309-16 is inconclusive: he favours derivation, in some
manner that cannot be demonstrated, from Waterloo.
Sounds like a variation on the sort of pattern you get in Cockney
rhyming slang--water closet becomes Waterloo becomes loo?
| Quote: | The general problem is that all varieties of English
prefer euphemisms. |
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Mark Brader
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 3:36 am
Post subject: Re: rest room - a lavatory or something else? |
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"David":
| Quote: | Practice differs between English speaking areas. If I saw a room
labeled "rest room" in the UK I would expect it to be a place to
rest.
|
But *have* you ever seen such a room in the UK with that label?
--
Mark Brader | "One of the lessons of history is that nothing
Toronto | is often a good thing to do and always a clever
msb@vex.net | thing to say." -- Will Durant |
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the Omrud
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 3:49 am
Post subject: Re: rest room - a lavatory or something else? |
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Mark Brader <msb@vex.net> spake thusly:
| Quote: | "David":
Practice differs between English speaking areas. If I saw a room
labeled "rest room" in the UK I would expect it to be a place to
rest.
But *have* you ever seen such a room in the UK with that label?
|
It's entirely likely that I have - it doesn't seem like an impossible
thing. I have seen a room in my children's primary school which was
intended for resting. If there were a resident nurse, it might have
been her domain, but there wasn't. I wouldn't be at all surprised if
it's called the rest room.
I see from googling that there is a room in at least some Turkish
Baths named the Rest Room. And here's another rest room, for coach
drivers to wait in while their passengers do their shopping:
http://www.o-mills.co.uk/restroom.html
A warm welcome awaits coach drivers when they visit Oswaldtwistle
Mills with the long awaited opening of the new coach drivers rest
room.
Facilities within the rest room consist of comfortable settees, easy
chairs, television, a selection of daily newspapers, assortment of
magazines that will be of interest to PCV drivers as well as hot
drinks vending machine dispensing complimentary beverages.
And the LSE has a rest room for porters:
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/security/who.htm
There are photographs of each of the teams on display in a frame
outside the security, porters and maintenance rest room on the ground
floor of Old Building adjacent to the Old Theatre.
And St Andrews University has a protocol for designating a room as a
rest room if a student becomes unwell:
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/services/safety/webpages/Codes-
Practice/unwell.html
http://tinyurl.com/79hgw
In the event of a student becoming unwell appropriate facilities must
be available for the student to rest away from other students and to
facilitate appropriate attention e.g. first aid or medical attention.
Compliance with the above requirement may be achieved by designating
an office as the rest room.
--
David
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