loo,toilet,bathroom,lavatory...what to do if you've got to go!

[DamonBradleylovesPippi]

English is not my first language and I wasn;t brought up here. The whole concept of language defining class etc eludes me at time.

please can you explain the above for me. which means what?

can you add similar? i.e. living room/lounge/
sofa/setee etc

Shouldn't it be supper rather than dinner...maybe I'll go to bed now!

just about to pass through the drawing room

It's a lazy way of judging people DB. It really is. And it's regional, so doubly irritating!

OED says about tea:

" 4. a. A meal or social entertainment at which tea is served; esp. an ordinary afternoon or evening meal, at which the usual beverage is tea (but sometimes cocoa, chocolate, coffee, or other substitute). Now usu. a light meal in the late afternoon, but locally in the U.K. (esp. northern), and in Australia and N.Z., a cooked evening meal; in Jamaica, the first meal of the day."

I'm guessing that it stems from a time where lunch was the main meal of the day, and tea was a "high tea" type of meal, where the drink was served, then the style of meal changed but the name stuck in certain parts of the UK (and in Aus and NZ, apparently!)

Oh yes I forgot the supper thing and the dinner at lunch time. Oh gawd...

I agree habbibu especially after many years here and many thread re class and what to say etc. I just thought that for once There could be a clear cut answer. But as usual with anything to do with language this is not possible isn't it?

I suppose as well that being a foreigner will excuse me for such faux pas anyway.

Sad what you contemplate on a saturday night but presumably toilet comes from toilette and therefore has nothing to do with having a pee?

why sad diedandgonetodevon?

Yes I think tea (involving some food) is acceptable as if you go for tea at the Savoy you will probably be served tea to drink with sandwiches etc.

Isn't this followed later by supper rather than dinner...please can some one clarify?!

I really am going to bed now!

These are examples of sociolects, and are really interesting in their own right, but rile me when people say, as they have on this thread(!) things like "never say x" or " y if you must" etc, with a certain amount of disdain. There's no intrinsic value to any of the options - their communicative clarity is pretty much equal, etc - it's just a way of some people establishing the "cachet" of others. And is therefore bollocks.

Loo

Sitting Room

Sofa

Napkin

Pudding

Meals in chronological order:
Breakfast
Lunch
Tea
Dinner
Supper

(and I may be a lardy bloater, but I don't eat every one of those meals every day!)

Sad because off all the things I could be contemplating I have chosen to consider the origins of the word 'toilet'

There can't be a clear cut answer because the variations are culturally, socially and regionally conditioned. And, as I've said, they vary. I don't have a problem with any of them, but then I was a descriptive linguist!

Diedandgonetodevon - yes, toilet from toile, to do with dressing, rather than washing, initially, and then to refer to things within the bathroom. So presumably rather euphemistic, and being French, of rather high prestige in its day. It may be that in x number of years it returns to being the prestige form. Who knows?

oh I see...

toilet
front room
couch
serviette
pudding

Breakfast, lunch and dinner

What's also interesting is that wc/water closet seems to be almost obsolete, but that seems to have been a prestige form at one time.

I loved linguistic at uni... shame it was only one module.

must go to bed now..I wonder if dh is willing to continue this conversation with me

Happywomble - supper:

1. a. The last meal of the day; (contextually) the hour at which this is taken, supper-time; also, such a meal made the occasion of a social or festive gathering. Often without article, demonstrative, possessive, or the like, esp. when governed by a prep. (to have supper; at, to, for, after supper). Formerly, the last of the three meals of the day (breakfast, dinner, and supper); now applied to the last substantial meal of the day when dinner is taken in the middle of the day, or to a late meal following an early evening dinner. Supper is usually a less formal meal than late dinner.

I could only call a front room if it was really the room at the front. Ours is and not being the living room could have been the drawing room but not grand enough. It is instead "the study" as it will be, one day soon, MY study!

and that is it from me, I'll make my own language.
thanks and goodnight.

Sorry for being so ranty, DB! Am coming down with a cold and do get on my high horse about these things.

Goodnight!

I use WC sometimes.
(Obviously, I use a WC quite often, but only sometimes use the term WC)

you were not ranty habbibu at all.

Where is ' back home,' DB?

I raised a few eyebrows at school the other day saying that DS was in the bog...

italy, campion.