LL-L "Idiomatica" 2008.06.21 (04) [E]

Sat Jun 21 22:35:58 UTC 2008

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L O W L A N D S - L - 21 June 2008 - Volume 04
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From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: LL-L "Idiomatica" 2008.06.20 (06) [E]

> From: Kevin & Cheryl Caldwell <kevin.caldwell1963 at verizon.net>
> Subject: LL-L "Idiomatica" 2008.06.20 (01) [E]
> Mike's post reminds me of another euphemism in English for "toilet": the
necessary.

In my Limburgish we say "*noa het heske gon*" (go to the little house) for
going to the lavatory.
Formerly the lavatory was a little house, separated from the main building,
not heated, with just a round hole in a board, covering the
pit. Traditionally a little hart was cut-out in the door, so one could have
some contact from the outside with the person inside. The expression
survived, without people realizing the historical etymology.

One of my TV favorites is the Swedish TV film "Kunglig Toalette"  (
http://www.filmpunkten.se/kunglig-toalette.asp). It is about the preparation
of a king's visit to a small town. The visit includes a tour in a plant,
where one thinks one has to construct a lavatory consistent with a supposed
protocol. The leftists are against and use the term "*shithus".* We also
have that term "*sjèèthoës*" (Dutch: schijthuis), but it is very vulgar.
(In my Liburgish: "hoës" (sleeptoon), plural "hais" (stoottoon), diminutive
"heske")

Today i saw (bilingual) on a bus downtown Brussels that it was going to the
"*cimetière / begraafplaats*" (graveyard). I'm rather used to "*kerkhof*",
but nowadays it is no longer close to a church and burials are not all
christian anymore. So the name is adjusted.

False friends:
In the seventies I did a summer job for Babcock in Essen and Oberhausen (I
had to translated specs from Framatome for nuclear plants from French into
German). I worked for an engineer called "*Friedhof".* I wrongly called him
unintentionally "*Kirchhof"* several times.

Regards,
Roger

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From: Luc Hellinckx <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Idiomatica"

Beste Ron,

You wrote:

> Scots /shitehoose/ [ˈʃəɪthus] would be very well understood by Low Saxon
> speakers, for their language has a similar sounding cognate: /schythuus/
> (/Schiethuus/ [ˈʃiːthuːs]), plural /schythuys'/ (/Schiethüüs'/
> [ˈʃiːthyːˑz]).
>
> There's another choice in Low Saxon: /Pardemang/ [ˌpʰaːdeˈmaˑŋ(k)] ~
> /Paddemang/ [ˌpʰadeˈmaˑŋ(k)] ~ /Parremang/ [ˌpʰaˑreˈmaˑŋ(k)]. Obviously,
> this one comes from French /appartement/ which carries the basic sense of
> "separate quarter(s)".
>

Traditional Brabantish (and Limburgish as well I believe) has "(h)öske" for
toilet, which actually means "little house"; because in a farm, a toilet
used to be a little outhouse, separate from the main building. The good
thing was that you had a roof above your head, but still you had to go
outside to take care of business.

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx

----------

From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Idiomatica" 2008.06.21 (02) [E]

Okay, Sandy brings up a DGS (German Sign Language) sign for toilet
which i happen to know the etymology of (or at least the source and
the common folk etymology).

>    o    shaking a telephone receiver at the side of the head while
> mouthing "shhh" (this strikes us British as a very strange and
> intriguing sign indeed!);

This I have also seen used in international settings among Deaf of
various countries, where various versions of International Sign are
being used. International Sign is largely a "European thing", and it
seems to have been the source of signs in DGS (more so than other sign
languages I am remotely familiar with).

As for the source, it is ASL (American Sign Language, where the idiom
"telephone room" is used for toilet. This usage has apparently been
around for quite some time (decades anyway, judging from the fact that
it is used naturally by people much older than myself). The (folk)
etymology is that back in the old days, before TTYs and faxes, back
when telephones were of absolutely NO use to Deaf people, when you
moved into a new furnished apartment (a common thing in the US), and
there was a telephone wasting perfectly good counter space in the
kitchen or living room, you just unplugged it and proceeded to store
it in the least  : like under the sink in the bathroom, behind all
those poisonous cleansers, etc.

Whether this etymology is correct of not (it seems to me to be too
cute to be true), nevertheless the idiom is quite widespread, and I
believe the source of the DGS sign (modified of course).

As for the other DGS sign Sandy refers to, namely:
>    o    holding up the hand with the index finger and thumb curved and
> the other fingers fanned so that it displays the letters "WC" on a
> single hand.

This is exactly the sign used in JSL (Japanese Sign Language).

NGT (Sign Language of the Netherlands ... FINALLY! A LOWLANDS sign
language) has an interesting twist to this sign: the fingerspelling
sign for "W" (the extended thumb, index and middle fingers) is bent
(as in the fingerspelled letter "C") -- and instance of a
fingerspelling handshape incorporated into another fingerspelling
handshape. (Number incorporation is quite common across sign
languages; alphabet letter incorporation into a sign is also quite
common, but into another alphabet letter is quite rare.)

> British Sign Language also has large numbers of signs for toilet,
>    ...
>    o    washing hands;

This is the more "genteel" JSL sign, used by ladies (as opposed to
women!). It is no dout also connected with the Japanese euphemism 御手洗
o-tearai literally "most respected hand washing (place)"

(As with BSL, JSL has a number of not so genteel ways of signing
toilet ... mostly seen among elderly men.)

>    o    fingerspelling "TT";

The most common ASL sign for toilet is the fingerspelled "T" shaken
from side to side. As this handshape (with the thumb inserted between
the index and middle fingers of the closed fist) is considered QUITE
rude in many parts of the world, it had best be avoided outside of its
homeland.

A repeated fingerspelling, similar to the BSL "TT" is the ASL "RR" ...
for "RestRoom". It also so happens to be the sign for "RailRoad"!

Here in India the commonest sign is also that used by the hearing
population as gesture: The extended pinkie finger is shaken from side
to side. (Actually, strictly speaking this refers ONLY to urination,
but ...)

Finally, moving away from sign languages to Lowlands territory (of
colonial days anyway) again, the Scots "the wee hoose" , referring no
doubt to the days of the outhouse, is exactly parallel to the way the
room is referred to in Bahasa Indonesia.

MWM || マイク || Мика || माईक  || માઈક || ਮਾਈਕ
================
Dr Michael W Morgan
Managing Director
Ishara Foundation
Mumbai (Bombay), India
++++++++++++++++
माईकल मोर्गन (पी.एच.डी.)
मेनेजिंग डॉयरेक्टर
ईशारा फॉउंडेशन (मुंबई )
++++++++++++++++
茂流岸マイク(言語学博士)
イシャラ基金の専務理事・事務局長
ムンバイ(ボンベイ)、インド
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