TIL "WC" is an initialism for "water closet"
I'm from non-english speaking country but we use "WC" for toilet and I just found out the meaning behind it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet#NamesOpen linkView original on lemmy.worldSyndicated from the fediverse. Read and engage on the original instance.
View original on lemmy.worldI'm from non-english speaking country but we use "WC" for toilet and I just found out the meaning behind it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet#NamesOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
26 replies
I didn't even see this post before I started my "Uncle John's Facts From A Closed Toilet", but consider this my pearls in the alley in front of a Young Bruce.
Wash Closet sounds like a small room for washing clothes or a person, however I was previously aware of the term.
If I remember correctly, some Asian countries call it WC. I hope this translates well, because the next part is really dumb.
Imagine if we were all forced to go into a tiny room and swing from clothing hangers while water blasted our buttholes!
Yippee!
There's a old joke about this from Jack Parr, told on the Tonight Show:
An English lady, while visiting Germany, was looking for a room to rent. She found a suitable one owned by a local schoolmaster. After returning home, she remembered she hadn’t seen a "W.C." (water closet/bathroom) on the property. She wrote a letter to the schoolmaster asking where the W.C. was located.
The schoolmaster, not knowing much English, was puzzled by the initials "W.C." He took the letter to the parish priest, and together they concluded that the lady must be asking about the local Wayside Chapel.
The schoolmaster wrote the following reply:
We use the abbreviation WC in german as well though. And chapel is Kapelle in german, so K not C. Also, according to wikipedia, the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayside_Chapel is located in australia. (In the joke it also sounds like a huge chapel. Most chapels can only hold like 5 persons.)
Yes, but has that always been the case? The joke might be old enough that this may not have been true in the time it is set in.
Germans use WC since the mid to late 1800s as far as I found out. I sort of doubt the joke is older than that but I could be wrong.
Thats why colloquially we call toilets "vécé" in hungarian which is basically VC(wc) pronounced as a word.
same in croatian
Same in Swedish.
Strangely enough, same in french.
Pronounced like "vayssay" in French because the English double-U is actually a double-V.
Toilet paper can be referred to as "PQ," for "papier cul" (translation of "ass paper").
I love how the French casually use so many "dirty" words in everyday speech without batting an eye.
We're so prudish over here.
It's funny, because head up to French Canada and all the curses are religious. Tabernac! Calisse!
That is hilarious! I've been learning French, but not Canadian French. Maybe I should give it a shot.
Same in Swedish. Not all, but a lot.
French Canadians are a special lot, they've perfected the snark
If you look at W its clearly VV and not UU. Silly English
Another word for toilet is john, which is also a presidential middle name.
I refer to my father as "John, like the toilet"
My headcanon is that the former president called himself Bill to avoid the WC initials.
In India, WC is the Western Commode, as opposed to the Indian Commode (squat toilet)
When I visited India it was always called "western style toilet" or something like that.
The more you drink the more double-you see
This always confused the hell out of me in Mexico.
And 'crapper' is from Thomas Crapper, who was one lauded as the inventor of the toilet, but that is s bit overblown.
Still the name stuck
That one isn't actually true. https://www.etymonline.com/word/crapper