Loo v Toilet

[Theaspidistraiswilting]

We say loo in our house. Every time my kids ask to go to the loo at school the staff won’t let them go until they ask properly to go to the toilet... They are confused! I am probably being unreasonable but aren’t both acceptable?

Jakes.

Just reading an old Sunday Times Magazine (from July does anyone else stockpile supplements for train journeys?) and lo and behold there’s an article including this topic for what it’s worth. Light-hearted I hope or not much has changed since Nancy M!

Pasta - yes I think the point of all this (if there is one) is that the upper classes adopt the idioms of the lower classes such as ‘bog’ whereas the middle classes tie themselves up in affectations thinking it will make them look refined.

“What on earth? People cringe when they hear the word ‘toilet’? Good grief.”

Exactly mamasiz. It is so affected and faux posh and terribly pretentious.

“Bathroom in this house.”

We don’t have a bath in our downstairs toilet florenceandthefig

“I really dislike it when people 'cringe' at others who say toilet. It's basically looking down on people who you think are inferior to you. It's fine if you are brought up to use 'loo' but why the need to feel superior about it?! Such a horrible snobbish way to think.”

This ^^
We say loo or toilet interchangeably. None of us were brought up to have a fit of the vapours if the word toilet was uttered. In public they are always referred to as toilets - in the UK anyway.

Luckily secondary staff reinforced that one went to the lavatory but performed ones toilet before leaving home in the morning

Really? By the time my children reached secondary school age they completely understood that some people use different words than we do and how to use language appropriately in order not to make others feel uncomfortable. We certainly didn't rely on school staff to reinforce that. Good grief, some of them might have been lower middle class

I once went to a function in a rather down market hotel. The loos were signposted as ‘The Necessarium’.

Dump fountain.

It's always been toilet for me...or the shitter

People who cringe at the word toilet must do an awful lot of cringing.

All over our small town there are signposts pointing the way to the public toilets and it is the same in other towns and cities I am familiar with.

In our house toilet and loo are both acceptable. Toilet has the edge though and is used more. As a joke maybe very occasionally bog or shitter, but that is unusual.

Happy to be cringeworthy.

I wouldnt cringe at toilet, but (just like I didnt understand with supper) why is loo mimsy or cringey or whatever? its just what I was brought up to say.

If someone asked me where the toilet was I would tell them and not think any more of it, same with loo/ladies/gents. If they said lav or lavatory I'd think they were older/a bit jolly hockeysticks. If they said bog, crapper or shitter and I didnt know them well I might raise an internal eyebrow, if that's even possible.

Since it's an AIBU, I will say the teacher is being unreasonable making a fuss over it. As long as the children aren't saying 'shit', 'crap', or 'piss', any well-understood synonym for 'loo' should be fine.

('Bog' is dubious IMHO. I don't consider it offensive or obscene, but I do think it's very informal.)

I prefer lavatory to toilet. There are so many great words though. An ex-colleague used to talk about going to the cludgie, which she said was a Scottish dialect word.

I may have to try and bring that into wider usage, it's a fantastic word.

Perhaps we could reintroduce the Tudor "house of easement" or, to be more up-to-date, "comfort station". Means the same thing, I suppose.

The Tudors referred to it as a "stool closet" too I think. Katherine Howard was accused of shagging one of her lovers in hers. How ... romantic.

Apparently Elizabeth I was given a built a flushing “John”.

Short history here

That is an absolute gem. Thanks, Prictoria!

Your children are not going to "raise eyebrows" because they know a toilet loo is actually called a toilet.
You sound painfully aspirational.

The House of Easement was for the menials. Probably that name made the users of the stool closet cringe

The poshest woman I know, and she’s so posh her trousers are held up by twine and quite possibly are older than the pile of rocks she calls home that has been inhabited by generations of her family for years (the rocks not the trousers although both are a possibility).

Has been telling me it’s a Khazi for years, oh and she would have probably hit me in the head with her throwing stick and called me a pretentious prick if I had ever at any time cringed even slightly at someone else’s use of the word toilet.

She’s a nice lady I like her lots

It is so beyond me why so many in the UK think 'loo' is polite and posh ... as an Australian I've only ever known it as a gross and old fashioned, somewhat nonsensical word for 'toilet'. And lowet class would be 'bog', 'dunny', 'shitter', etc.

Yes, this!

There's a Biff and Chip book which includes the word "toilet".

I used to work in YR and a little girl went bright red and refused to say the word when she came across it. I asked her why and she whispered to me "Mummy said that word is rude". I offered to say the word for her, which she accepted.
I did tell her that it wasn't really a rude word, just a different word, which a lot of people used.

If you don't want your child to use it fine, but surely that child should be told that many do and also the word is on nearly every door of restaurants/cafes/public loos etc. Do "toilet is so rude" folk have an attack of the vipers when they see the word dotted all over the place?

It is so beyond me why so many in the UK think 'loo' is polite and posh ... as an Australian I've only ever known it as a gross and old fashioned, somewhat nonsensical word for 'toilet'. And lowet class would be 'bog', 'dunny', 'shitter', etc.

I guess it's because language in different countries (continents, even) evolves, you know, differently?

In the UK a bathroom is a room with a bath in it. There is nothing regional about it. I wouldn't say I'm going to the toilet because I was brought up middle class, so toilet is only used for "where are the toilets?". I would say I'm going to the loo, going for a wee (close friends & family only) or possibly going to use the facilities.