a possibly minority position

[Michele A. Berdy]

Dustin Hosseini wrote: "But hey, I suppose PC makes the English language 
appear more 'beautiful'  than Russian since we've learned to express certain 
concepts with several more words than necessary; i.e. the lavatory, 
restroom, W/C (water closet), the john, the porcelain goddess (I suppose I 
should say porcelain god, so that the men don't feel left out and the women 
less offended...) and last  but not least, the toilet..."

Surely you don't think that Russian doesn't have euphemisms for the toilet 
and going to the toilet? I have pages and pages pages of them, including 
what you cite in English: клозет/ватерклозет (albeit, rather rare), 
удобство, читальная, библиотека, место для раздумий, одно место; 
белый/фарфоровый друг/пони. There are also plenty of "polite" ways to excuse 
oneself to go to this "particular place," although I think (but would need 
more research to confirm) that among friends (young-ish) Russians are 
slightly more likely to say "пойду пописаю" than Americans are likely to say 
"I'm going to take a pee." And there are dozens of ways in Russian -- both 
polite and crude -- to describe the processes that go on there (other than 
reading, which seems to be a cross-cultural habit). I solicited expressions 
for a couple of columns I did on this and got so many words and expressions, 
you could write a dissertation on it. Actually, surely someone has. (?)

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