privy = latrine = privy?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Nice people just didn't talk about that crap!  And if you were old enough to
look up "privy" in the first place and *had to*, you were obviously just a
little too weird to be granted that knowledge in the first place!

JL

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 10:33 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: privy = latrine = privy?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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:
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> > Sender: Ā  Ā  Ā  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster: Ā  Ā  Ā  "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject: Ā  Ā  Ā privy = latrine = privy?
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Help! Ā I'm sure this has been talked about before -- especially re
> > "toilet" -- but:
> >
> > Why does the OED define
> > Ā  Ā  Ā privy noun B.I.1. as "a latrine",
> > and then define
> > Ā  Ā  Ā 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". Ā 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? Ā Why is the OED so oblique (obscure,
> > reticent, ...) about function?
> >
> > Joel
> >
> > Joel
> >
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>
>
> --
> -Wilson
> ā€“ā€“ā€“
> 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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