"pee" goes standard

[Laurence Horn]

On Jan 14, 2013, at 7:53 AM, Charles C Doyle wrote:

> And "go to the bathroom" has, grotesquely, become all-but standard for 'defecate':  as in "He went to the bathroom in his pants."
>
> --Charlie

As Jerry Morgan pointed out in a 1978 paper, the meaning shift had become complete the first time someone was able to say "Your dog went to the bathroom on my living room rug".

LH
> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Wilson Gray [hwgray at GMAIL.COM]
> Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2013 11:54 PM
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 10:17 AM, Charles C Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
>> TMI?
>
> Indeed! A quiet, lady-like "I gotta drop a deuce" should suffice.
>
> But, seriously, folks, my vote goes to a simple "Excuse me." Even "I
> have to go to the bathroom" used to annoy me, back in my dating years.
> OTOH, I've always been cool with, "Where is the ladies' room?" Though
> the use of "bsthroom" as the general term for "public house of
> leisure" is now <sob!> pretty much the current standard, I still wish
> that it had died a-borning.
>
> --
> -Wilson
>
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