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Originally Posted by Roger Slater
Hi, ChrisG. Haven't seen you online for ages. Welcome back!
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Thanks, Roger. Nice to be back. I am enjoying commenting and posting generally. Looking forward to reading more of your work.
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Originally Posted by Gail White
Nancy Mitford was amused by the American euphemism "going to the bathroom" as if one meant to take a shower. Does anyone still call
it the W.C?
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Originally Posted by Gregory Dowling
Curiously WC survives in Italy - or at least the term "water closet" does, always abbreviated to "il water", pronounced "vattair".
They also call it, as in most other languages I'd guess, "il bagno" (bathroom) and, rather charmingly, "il gabinetto". More vulgar is "il cesso", as in cesspit.
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Interesting to know! Thanks, Gregory. I would think that the term "W.C." does still survive in the UK and Ireland, at least among the older generation. I took a War of 1812 tour of Maryland's Eastern Shore a week ago and one of the participants on the tour was surprised to see the sign "W.C." on the plank door of a colonial farmhouse now a bed and breakfast (we were lined up to get in, you see). "That's not American!" the person exclaimed. Although I happened to know, from having stayed at the B&B some years beforehand, that the father of the owner was Irish American and I could imagine he or his daughter had picked up the sign one time in Ireland as an addition to the house when it was renovated.
Chris