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About 100 years ago in New Zealand my great great grandfather was very proud of his “WC”. Of course only guests were allowed to use it!
by rangibaby 9y ago
About 100 years ago in New Zealand my great great grandfather was very proud of his “WC”. Of course only guests were allowed to use it!
- goldenkey 9y agoWhat does WC stand for?
- grzm 9y agoWater closet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flush_toilet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flush_toilet
- goldenkey 9y agoThanks, I can't believe I had never heard that synonym for toilet until now!
- magic_beans 9y agoYou’ve never been to Canada, Europe, or India?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- brilee 9y agoNot everyone gets the luxury of traveling around the world.
- nol13 9y agoYa, but couldn't find any toilets so just held it in whole time.
- blhack 9y agoI've been to all of those places and only ever heard it called a WC or "water closet" in my high school french class.
- vidarh 9y agoIt's fading out of use in most of Europe, as far as I can tell. My grandmother used to always say WC in Norway. I don't know of anyone in my parents generation (born around 1950) or younger that'd use it. We're mostly all familiar with it still though.
- manmal 9y agoIt’s still pretty common in at least Germany and Austria, but is superseded by „Toilette“.
- samiru 9y agoIn Finnish WC morphed at some point into a proper Finnish word, ”Vessa”.
- vidarh 9y agoIn Norway in formal use it was superseded by "toalett". In informal use "do" is also pretty common. I don't know the etymology of that.
- PeterMikhailov 9y agoGerman and Austrian inspection toilets terrify me.
- graeme 9y agoWe don't really say that in Canada.
- lloydde 9y agoNot common in Canada at least not in the twentyfirst century. I’m from western Canada and have visited most other provinces.
- coldsauce 9y agoIt's also another way to say bathroom in Serbian! I had no idea other languages used it, too.
- _ph_ 9y agoIt is a common German word too.
- tytytytytytytyt 9y agoThe only place I remember seeing it is in The Diary of Anne Frank. I'd guess it's on British tv/radio, too.
- forinti 9y agoIs English your mother tongue? In South America, people use WC, Patent (because it was written on the loo), or just Water (in Uruguay, at least) a lot. So it would be funny if (at least WC) was not as known in the English-speaking world. Patente (used in Brazil) is obviously just derived from the Patent label.
- merraksh 9y agoItalians use "water" (spelled váter") or WC (spelled "vee-chee"), rarely "tazza" or the less elegant "cesso".
- forinti 9y agoIn Brazil, WC is pronounced "ve-ce". And "water" in Uruguay is "guater".
- marktangotango 9y agoIn Germany, Crapper manufactured toilet bowls are still common.
- sedatk 9y agoWC is extremely common in Turkey too.
- bonniemuffin 9y agoI think it would be pretty easy to go through life in the US without ever hearing a toilet called a WC; I'm familiar with the abbreviation but I'm not even sure how, because I can't remember ever hearing or reading it.
- jessaustin 9y agoI've seen the abbreviation used on building plans in USA, in the past ten years. It did seem out of place, but all architects have some screwy habit that makes their plans more difficult to read. According to my grandfather, when he was growing up poor in southern Illinois in the 1930s, "toilet" was a crude word and people said "W.C." to be polite. Outhouses were more common than toilets, to the extent that old-timers then thought it was disgusting to defecate in the same building where one slept. Perhaps "water closet" seemed an appropriately exotic term.