OT:Heard on American Dad: daughter Hayley singing a song about...

[Jonathan Lighter]

>I believe such places are referred to in USAmerica as rest stops or places
of little ease.

Surely you jest.

A "rest stop" is, literally, a highway facility (more officially a "rest
area") providing one or two rest rooms, though "rest stop" can be applied to
the act of stopping itself in order to use any similar facility, as at a gas
station.

As for "place of little ease," surely you jest.

JL

On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 4:21 AM, Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinter,
somewhat facetiously net.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at BTINTERNET.COM>
> Subject:      Re: OT:Heard on American Dad: daughter Hayley singing a song
>              about...
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> > She has my sympathy. I found out that there's a major problem involved
> > in asking - in English! - for the location of the bathroom, even among
> > Dutch people who have lived in the States long enough to have earned
> > American doctorates.
> >
> > -Wilson
>
> Ha!  Now when *I* was at school -- high school, that is -- in the late
> fifties, I was told quite firmly that one only referred to the bathroom
> when
> wishing completely to cleanse the body in a tub.  The room where one went
> to
> perform other bodily functions, containing only a water closet and a wash
> hand basin, was a toilet [sic], though Nancy Mitford, in "U and non-U",
> might, while scouting the term 'loo', have begged to differ.
>
> (I believe such places are referred to in USAmerica as rest stops or places
> of little ease.  The term of use in Glasgow is "cludgie", though strictly
> that would refer to an outdoors privy.)
>
> Equally, to doff some pedantry towards another thread, I was told that a
> gentleman never inserted a comma between a street number and its name.
>
> Robin
>
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