Talk:Toilet (room)

This  level-5 vital article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Architecture Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Architecture, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Architecture on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ArchitectureWikipedia:WikiProject ArchitectureTemplate:WikiProject ArchitectureArchitecture articles Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. project-independent quality rating in the banner shell. Please resolve this conflict if possible. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

This article was nominated for deletion on 1 July 2012 (UTC). The result of the discussion was Find an editorial solution..

A fact from Toilet (room) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 25 July 2012 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that the German architect Hermann Muthesius noted in 1904 that it was "considered downright inadmissible" for the toilet to be in a British bathroom, rather than a room of its own? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2012/July. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Toilet (room).

I have created this article by way of completion of a set of edits I made on the broad subject of sanitation over the years some time back during which time the main toilet article was focused entirely on the device, thereby creating a need for an article for the room. I won't be making further edits to this article now and would encourage others to do so. There may be content in the toilet article that could usefully be moved to thia article. PeterEastern (talk) 17:57, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm removing the word "euphemistically" from "... it is sometimes euphemistically called a bathroom" in the lead section. To say that "bathroom" is a euphemism is misleading; in some cases it may be euphemistic, but in many if not most areas where it is used (like the US) "bathroom" is simply the common generic term for a room with one or more plumbing fixtures for personal hygiene, regardless of the function of the individual fixture(s). The word "toilet" is in common use in the same areas, though, which it would not be if it required a euphemism.--Jim10701 (talk) 20:43, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When "bathroom" is used for a room that contains only a toilet and maybe a sink (as in a bar), it is euphemistic :-) I think it's also clearer for those who only know the usage on one or the other side of the Atlantic, by giving a reason rather than presenting it as a "just so". Yngvadottir (talk) 20:51, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, it isn't euphemistic, even in a bar. If you used the term in that situation you might feel that it was euphemistic, but most Americans wouldn't. It's just the generic term for a room with a toilet in it. It may have been euphemistic a hundred years ago, but it isn't euphemistic any longer. The word "toilet" started out as a euphemism too, but it is no longer recognized as such. The same is true of "bathroom" in the US.

I have no interest in arguing over something as trivial as this. Do whatever you want to do.--Jim10701 (talk) 21:11, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What bothers me about this is more serious than I thought it was before – not actually trivial at all – and it goes to the heart of one of Wikipedia's core principles: maintaining a neutral point of view in WP articles.

The problem with the word euphemistically is that it is not neutral: it carries a sense of judgment about the term being labeled as a euphemism. It implies that there is a "correct" word and that the euphemism is a sort of second-rate substitute for the correct word; death and passing are a classic example in English. That is not the case with toilet and bathroom.

Here we have two different names for the same thing, used in two (or more) different parts of the world. To say that the word used in the US is a euphemism but that the word used elsewhere is not a euphemism gives the incorrect impression that toilet is somehow the "right" word and bathroom is not.

In fact, both words are euphemisms (toilet literally meaning "cloth", or something like that), since I doubt there is any place on earth where the room is routinely called a "shit room", which is about all I can think of that would not be a euphemism. (At least bathroom is an English euphemism and not one borrowed from French; in fact, its foreign origin may be what shields toilet from the "euphemism" label, since most native English speakers know what bath means, but not that toilet means "cloth" or whatever.)

To imply (as this article does) that the US term is a euphemism but the European term is not a euphemism not only is not neutral but it is not true. It is taking the European term as the correct term and accounting for the different term in the US as a euphemism, which can hardly be seen as a neutral point of view.

To a European English speaker, bathroom when applied to a room containing a toilet but no bath tub may sound like a euphemism, and if that European used it it would be a euphemism for him or her, but to an American it is not a euphemism; it is simply our name for the room. To give only the European viewpoint is not neutral. If you are going to label bathroom as a euphemism, you must do the same with toilet, since it is no less a euphemism than bathroom is; it just came from a different language.

A simpler yet still neutral solution would be to say that the room called a toilet in some parts of the world is called a bathroom in other parts of the world. That gives people on both sides of the Atlantic and all other oceans enough information without either passing unjustified judgment on one of the terms or introducing an extended discussion of how there came to be two different words for the same thing. To do so with everything that has different names in different parts of the world would bring the English Wikipedia to a screeching halt, but glibly writing off bathroom as a euphemism just to satisfy non-US readers is unacceptably biased.

I am going to make that or an equivalent change in the article. I trust it will satisfy anybody who's truly interested in maintaining a neutral pint of view here. Or I may just remove that whole clause and leave out the fact that a toilet (room) is called by another name in another part of the world; the article works just as well without it.--Jim10701 (talk) 04:20, 16 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your concern; but I added the phrase because people were linking bathroom. And have you looked at the AfD discussion? People were talking past each other there because the usage for a separate room rather than a porcelain fixture was/is as inconceivable to one side of the English-speaking world as using the word for a bathing facility rather than a distinct word was/is to the other side of the English-speaking world. To say there is also a word "toilet" in North America misses the point, IMO - also note the universal use of "euphemism" in discussion at the AfD. Of course "toilet" was originally a euphemism also, but it is now the only word for the fixture in North America (you see at the AfD one or more speakers of British-derived versions of English using "water closet", which is unambiguously the fixture not the room but is not used in North America AFAIK). ("Lavatory" was also originally a euphemism and is still occasionally used in its original meaning; there was confusion recently with the interwiki from a new French article on the monastic/archeological lavatorium coming here.) I'm afraid "bathroom" is demonstrably a euphemism inasmuch as "toilet" does exist as an impolite alternative even in North America, but a major cause of its not being immediately recognizable as such is that the subject of the article - the toilet room - is a rarity in the US outside bars and restaurants. Hence "half bath". So for speakers of North American variants of English and any others where the notion of a separate room is unexpected, the "euphemism" explanation explains why it's a distinct topic. But I will look for some refs to add to the word. Yngvadottir (talk) 04:38, 16 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure you'll have no problem finding references that say bathroom is a euphemism when what is being talked about is a toilet room, since you seem determined to do so. I don't know what else I can say about this, so I have to remind myself that this is only Wikipedia, not something that really matters.

Just for your personal information, not because I have any hope that it will get through onto the pages of this "encyclopedia": Americans are not at all uncomfortable calling a room with only a toilet in it a toilet; that's just not the word that has risen to the top as the one we use most often. Even in a private home, if I ask, "Where's the toilet", it will offend no one and they will understand exactly what I mean. It just happens that I and most other Americans would much more likely say, "Where's the bathroom", even when it's obvious to everybody that I'm not planning to take a bath.

Half bath is used almost exclusively by real estate agents and others talking about the specifications of a house ("two and a half baths", for example); an American would never, ever go into someone's house and ask, "Where's your half bath?" unless he was trying intentionally to sound ridiculous. And I have heard the term powder room on television and in movies but never in person, unless (as with half bath) it was being said with extreme facetiousness. Powder room may be used in certain limited social circles, else why would it be on TV, but it is not widely used in the US except possibly as a joke.

As for calling them toilets in bars and restaurants, that is no more common than calling them toilets in private homes; it happens, but it's not the most common term used here. There is a different term for them in places like that, but it's restroom, not toilet (although, again, if I did ask for the toilet, no one would be offended or puzzled as to what I was asking for).

A person would not normally ask for the restroom in a private home, but if they did (yet again) it would offend and puzzle no one. Likewise, asking for the bathroom in a bar or restaurant would not even be noticed by most people. Although restroom is the standard name for it in a public place, lots and lots of people (possibly a majority, and if not it'd be close) would call it a bathroom wherever they were, and unless the circumstances specifically indicated otherwise, everyone would know what they're actually asking for is the toilet, not a bath tub or shower.

I don't know where you got the idea that Americans have a problem with the word toilet, because we don't. It's not the word we normally happen to use for a small room with only a toilet in it, but that's not because we find the word distasteful. If we did, why would we use it for the fixture, which you acknowledged we do?

A long time ago in the South where I grew up, we called the fixtures commodes, not toilets, but even that wasn't because the word toilet offended anybody but because that's just the word we used. I haven't heard commode used in that sense in a long time, but I'm sure there are people who still use it. You're right that most Americans don't know what a water closet is, and if I asked for the water closet anywhere I'd be met with consternation or ridicule because it's just a very funny sounding expression.

Americans use bathroom as the comprehensive term for any room of any size in any kind of building probably because in practically all American houses and apartments all those fixtures are found in the same room. A normal American bathroom has a toilet, a sink and a bath tub, and that's always called a bathroom. Always. There is no other word for a room with all those fixtures in it. Such a room in a private home would never be called a toilet, or anything else but a bathroom. I don't know why the room got named for the tub instead of some other fixture, but it did – maybe just because it's the largest fixture in the room.

Then, later, when houses started getting what the real estate people call half baths and Europeans call toilet (rooms), and what are called restrooms in public buildings, people still called them all bathrooms because that's the word they already used for rooms of that sort in their homes. But at no point was the motivation a sort of prudish aversion to the word toilet. That's just a mistake, and even if you find reliable sources that say it's so, they're wrong.

Whether something is true matters to me much more than whether some published expert says it, which is one reason I dislike Wikipedia and am convinced that sooner or later this big circus will collapse under the weight of its own chaotic pretensions.

Bottom line: you win. Now that I've had the opportunity to say everything I have to say about the subject, I don't care what happens in the article. As I said before, it's only Wikipedia, not something that really matters. Thanks for an interesting discussion. Take care.--Jim10701 (talk) 06:33, 16 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I suspected there might be regional differences within North America, and you've strengthened that suspicion. I agree about "half bath", but I have heard "powder room" far more frequently of the extra room in a house than of the ladies' room in a public facility - although that's sometimes what department stores label it. I remain convinced that the underlying difference of usage and perception has more to do with the fact that the toilet is usually in a separate room in the UK (and, I found out researching the article, also in Australia) whereas as you imply above, it's assumed to be in the bathroom in the US (and also in Canada). The article is about the room; a room which is exceptional in a house in North America, but the norm in some other countries. I explored how this historically came to be when I expanded the article, but all I found was explanations for the separate toilet room. I didn't find a clear statement from a builder that the mass building of private houses and apartments happened in the US and Canada after indoor plumbing was already well established, whereas in the UK it was already well under way by the time indoor sanitary facilities became the norm, but that would be my first guess; on the other hand, the early tenements of New York had outside toilets very similar to those in English workingmen's terraces, and I've seen more public bathhouses from the era before working-class homes had baths or showers in the US than in the UK. For what it's worth, as I began my search I saw "bathroom" for a toilet room categorically labelled a euphemism (with a link, yet) at the toilet article. What I'm trying to do is make clear that the topic of this article is a room containing a toilet, and maybe a sink, but that's it. The AfD threw into stark relief that for many people, that's a novel concept; the article was almost deleted as a result! --Yngvadottir (talk) 12:30, 16 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm unsure how many dictionaries I'll need to cite to convince you of this, but here you go... [1] [2] [3]... and the best of all, the only definition of "bathroom" given by Cambridge for American English... [4] "a room with a toilet and a place to wash your hands, and often a bathtub and a shower".

Not a euphemism. Red Slash 01:09, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As I said in an edit summary earlier, see the reference in the article. The word is originally a euphemism even in North America (and demonstrably still is there when used for a public toilet); in other parts of the English speaking world, it is simply unknown to use the word "bathroom" for a non-bathing facility, reflecting the difference in traditional accommodation of the toilet (the fixture) in countries other than the US and Canada. You are therefore arguing for one regional usage over the original and clearer usage; in the US/Canadian context, the subject of this article does not even arise except in bars and other public places. The objective of the article (and the bathroom article) is to neutrally explain, not to prescribe/describe usage in a particular region, which is the objective of an American English dictionary. So providing the difference in usage is explained so it's clear to people familiar with either, the article is neutral despite its being on a subject largely unconsidered in North American English. Yngvadottir (talk) 02:27, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What's your idea of a euphemism? I always understood it as a word that replaces another one that people don't want to say. But for North Americans, the word "bathroom" doesn't seem to replace anything. (Sure, it may have been a euphemism once upon a time according to your source, just like "toilet" once was!) But anymore I don't see how this can possibly be a euphemism since it's not replacing any other word. I have no other word available to me other than "bathroom" to refer to a room in a private residence that holds a toilet. So why is it a euphemism? (P.S., I am not asking for a page move, just that if "bathroom" is not a euphemism, could we please mention the regional usage as regional without calling it a euphemism?) Red Slash 16:58, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's a classic example of a euphemism, as demonstrated by the use for the toilet (room) in a restaurant or other facility where there is no bathtub or shower. Just as much as saying "wash up" for what you do there. (And the fact there are relatively plain ways of saying it: "I need to pee" rather than "I need a bathroom" for example.) As I said above in response to another editor with a North American background, for some reason the way homes were laid out differed in North America (this is one of those things that goes for Canada as well) versus the UK (the UK tradition being almost certainly the source of the situation in Australia and New Zealand). Similarly in the non-English-speaking world, the Japanese always have a separate room/compartment, and the French traditionally do as well, but the rest of continental Europe puts the toilet in the bathroom like the US and Canada. This leads to a lot of mutual incomprehension; in the AfD discussion for this article (which was precipitated by someone not familiar with the concept moving it to "public bathroom") there were N.Am. editors unaware this is a thing that exists, and U.K. editors unaware "bathroom" can be used to mean "place you pee" - they talked past each other because it's a euphemism that the latter group has no reason to be aware of. Ergo, the mission of the article is to clearly explain this thing, and cover as globally as possible where it occurs, and related usages such as "half bath" and "powder room" (both of which also illustrate that it remains euphemistic). Unless that mention of euphemism is there at the outset, with a reference, N.Am. English-speakers will continue trying to redirect the article to bathroom, public toilet, or something else inappropriate, because they haven't had to think about the issue before - like any other exotic foreign custom :-) This article is just on toilet rooms; the careful discussion of regional differences in layout and terminology (including bidets, shower stalls, and so on) belongs in the bathroom article, which is broader in focus. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:26, 8 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fascinating! But hang on. The word toilette in French means, basically, your daily routine of getting ready / personal grooming, if I remember correctly. So etymologically, toilet is a euphemism too, right? And the word "bathroom" comes from the word for "bath", so etymologically it's a euphemism too. Gotcha. So should the article state that both of these are euphemisms?

Of course "toilet" is not intended by its speakers to be a euphemism. Nobody in the UK uses "toilet" (meaning the room) thinking that they're using a euphemism. It's a situation quite unlike "assisted living" or "hearing impaired". I remind you that no one in the USA uses "bathroom" (to refer to a room that may or may not have a bath but assuredly has a sink and toilet) as a euphemism. In fact, what you would call strictly a "toilet" room DOES exist in the United States with relative frequency, alongside another bathroom (the latter with both a shower/bath and a toilet). And such toilet rooms are called "bathrooms" and have no other name in my country. Red Slash 01:22, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Half bath" illustrates the N. Am. problem conceiving of such a thing :-) The home situation is taken as normative. There are in fact ways of saying it in a North American context, but they're socially crude, and refer either to the act or to the fixture - because the notion of such a room is a foreign one (except at a bar, or as an extra luxury thought of as primarily for guests). Historically, "toilet" is euphemistic in this way too, as is "lavatory" - but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and only secondarily provides etymology. I think the toilet article does a fair job of providing that linguistic background. Perhaps it would help if I underlined that the N. Am. usage of bathroom is opaque to British, Australian, and New Zealand users? The AfD involved speakers of both varieties of English honestly not understanding each others' usage. (And lavatory is used completely differently on both sides of the Atlantic.) But this article is on a topic distinct from that of bathroom, and both sets of readers need clear context in the lede. Yngvadottir (talk) 02:53, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ambiguity in wikipedia articles is a bad thing, and I agree with you that we must avoid confusing people. But the word "euphemistically" here I believe is confusing non-U.S. readers into thinking that us calling it a bathroom is a euphemism--as opposed to the truth that we have no other word for it in a non-public situation ("restroom" works for what you would consider a "public toilet", but it's not used to refer to a private residence's room with a toilet; "WC", "toilet", etc. are completely unknown as names for rooms). So here's a compromise: how about we just explain the usage? Something like "Such a room is commonly called a bathroom or half bath in North America, despite not containing a bath". I think any American would readily agree that logically "bathroom" used for a room with just a toilet and sink is funny (like driving on parkways, etc.) and I think it'd lend a lot of clarity to the lead. What say you? Red Slash 01:59, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've included half bath and powder room, that seems like a good idea for the users of North American English; however, "euphemism" is needed as an explanation for the indeterminate fraction of the English-speaking world to whom the use of "bathroom" is the new information here. That lengthens the lede and in my mind makes it a bit clunky, but hopefully clearer for the North Americans? Yngvadottir (talk) 05:22, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In reference to toilets, "bathroom" is most certainly a euphemism and that judgment is completely neutral. There's a separate article on actual non-euphemistic bathrooms. That most Americans no longer consider it a euphemism is neither here nor there. That said, nearly every English word apart from "shitter" is also euphemistic and the label should be noted for all of them, not just those Brits have a problem with. — LlywelynII 05:24, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If bathroom is not a euphemism for toilet (room), then what is it? What is an actual bathroom then with a shower and a bathtub? How can there be the same word for two different things in a language, when not one of them is an euphemism? I think the misunderstanding here is twofold: 1. There is another word for toilet (installation), namely toilet bowl. So, even north americans could if they wanted say something like: "in our house we have a toilet with a toilet bowl in it, and a bath with a shower and a bath tub in it". See, the toilet just went up a level from being the word for toilet bowl (installation) to the word for the room. But since toilet bowl is not a word that is likely to be used anytime, toilet took its place, so there's a word needed for the room now. 2. The use of the word bathroom is idiomatic. You *say* "I have to go to the bathroom", but you *mean* something different. That does not mean however, that a bathroom *is* a toilet. So, bathroom is *not* a word for toilet. Just like when you say "I hit the sack" the word sack is now not a new word for bed, or when you say "she has a bun in the oven", the word bun is not a new word for baby and the word oven is not a new word for womb. The wikipedia article for bed does not include a section saying that "sometimes a bed is called a sack" just because such an idiom exists in a certain culture. The same with the wikipedia articles for baby and womb. If there's a newspaper article with the title "train driver went to the bathroom at 90 mph", everyone knows, that trains don't have bathrooms. So, it's an idiom and a euphemism. And there's another misunderstanding here: The word euphemism is per se neutral. Bathroom is a euphemism in the sense that the visualization of someone bathing is more pleasent than the visualization of someone urinating or defecating. That has nothing to do with the question whether there is a right or a wrong word. Euphemism just means "a more pleasent word", exactly in the same sense that toilet is a euphemism for shitter. So bathroom is at least a double euphemism. Any room that you call a bathroom, that you don't intend to take a bath in, is a euphemism for the thing you intend to do in there instead, that is *less* pleasent to think or speak of than bathing. And that is a totally neutral statement, noone should take offence on either side. And if for whatever reason suddenly all north american moms and dads decided to speak only of "hitting the sack", and kids would grow up with that, in 150 years from now, sack would be the word for bed in north america. That is also a totally neutral observation, and has even less to do with questions of euphemism or not. That's just how language and culture works with us humans. The question that remains is, whether in a wikipedia article for the entire world, it should be mentioned then, that sack is the common word for bed in north america when in the rest of the world it is still bed. I think yes, and in this hypothetical case, without mentioning euphemisms or mal-phemisms. And btw where I live, the room with just a toilet bowl and maybe a small wash basin and a mirror is called a loo, and the room with a bath tub and a shower and maybe an additional toilet bowl is called a bath. So where I live, there is zero fuss about "toilets" or "bathrooms" whatsoever. 2003:D5:5F10:C000:E000:123E:25CD:BF37 (talk) 15:49, 23 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]