privy = latrine = privy?

[Wilson Gray]

OT: Back in the day when Harvard had a union card-catalog - in
in-house jargon, "the OC," since the official name of the union
catalog was the "Official Catalog - I came across something like the
following:

Card A: Latrine - see "privy"

Card B: Privy - see "latrine"

As a consequence, all books on subject X and subject Y were essentially lost.

"Even Homer nods."

-Wilson

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 11:43 AM, Joel S. Berson<Berson at att.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â privy = latrine = privy?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Help! Â I'm sure this has been talked about before -- especially re
> "toilet" -- but:
>
> Why does the OED define
> Â  Â  Â privy noun B.I.1. as "a latrine",
> and then define
> Â  Â  Â latrine 1. as a "privy"?
>
> I will concede that the fuller B.I.1. definition of "privy" is "A
> lavatory (in later use esp. one situated outside or without
> plumbing); a latrine". Â But "lavatory" leads one down the wrong path,
> to washing, and only "subsequently also including water-closets, etc.
> In the 20th c. one of the more usual words for a W.C." (lavatory, 4.).
>
> And "water-closet" = "a privy [!], and furnished with water-supply to
> flush the pan and discharge its contents into a waste-pipe below."
>
> As for "toilet", the sense of apparatus does not seem to appear at
> all -- despite the fact that many of the compounds/combinations apply
> only to that sense -- e.g. -bucket, lid, seat, stall, tank, paper
> (for which there is another evasion: "(b) for use in lavatories"),
> roll, tissue, -training.
>
> If one didn't know already what one of these four words meant, what
> elucidation would one receive? Â Why is the OED so oblique (obscure,
> reticent, ...) about function?
>
> Joel
>
> Joel
>
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--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

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