"pee" goes standard
Benjamin Barrett
gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM
Mon Jan 14 17:26:17 UTC 2013
On Jan 14, 2013, at 7:11 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
> 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
It's hard to say how I would react in real life to someone saying this, but I think peeing would qualify as going to the bathroom.
Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA
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