Thunder, Flush and Thomas Crapper: E

To make a simple earth-closet, you dug a hole in the ground, leaving the earth piled beside the hole. You could simply squat over the hole, but it was common to build a seat above it. After each visit you shovelled in a little earth on top of the excrement. This process continued until the hole was full, when you covered it over, and dug a new hole a short distance away.

School Loo

W Liddiard patented a commode "particularly adapted for use indoors," and a multi-seater earth-closet for use in schools [see illustration in book, p57]. Any number of units could be bolted together, side by side, and the earth-releasing mechanism operated from a distance, so that children could be prevented from playing with the device and wasting the earth.

Ash Loo

An 1873 dry-ash commode could be filled straight from the fire-grate. The cinders were automatically separated and kept for re-burning, while the fine ash covered the contents of the bucket every time the lid was raised. A later version had a removable drawer instead of a bucket, rather like some chemical lavatories today.

Using such euphemisms seems to be general human behaviour; similar expressions crop up in many cultures and languages; see astronauts, Australia, Bible, France, Germany, New Zealand, trains, United States.

Euphemisms for lavatory

Here are some of the words and phrases used in Britain to mean what I call a lavatory: bog, cloakroom, close stool, closet, commode, convenience, garderobe, gents, heads, jakes, khazi, ladies, latrine, lavatory, loo, necessary, netty, place of easement, powder room, privy, shit-house, smallest room, thunder-box, toilet, water-closet, and WC.

Hamilton Ellis suggests that railway companies were responsible for the use of the word toilet. Eighty years ago some railway carriages had a room in which to wash, labelled 'Toilet', opposite one with a water-closet, labelled 'WC'. When the two rooms were combined, the 'Toilet' label was used.

In the sanitaryware business a 'lavatory' means a wash-basin; a recepticle for excretion is called a 'closet'.

For the verb 'go to the lavatory' we use these euphemisms: explore the geography of the house, go to the bathroom/cloakroom/loo/toilet, pay a visit, powder my nose, visit the smallest room, or wash my hands. At school we used to put up a hand and say 'Please may I be excused?' So 'to be excused' also meant to go to the lavatory.

Euphemisms for faeces (and defecate)

Big jobs, crap (crap, have a crap, take a crap), dump (do a dump), heap (do a heap), number two, plock (do a plock), plop-plop or plop, poo or pooh, shit, or stool (go to stool).

Euphemisms for urinate

Jimmy Riddle, micturate, pee, piddle, piss, pump ship, slash, strain the potatoes, water the garden/tulips/tomatoes, wee, or widdle, and, for men, point Percy at the porcelain, or shake hands with an old friend.

When asked to give a word of advice to newly-commissioned officers, the Duke of Wellington is supposed to have said 'Never neglect an opportunity to pump ship!'.