LL-L "Idiomatica" 2008.06.21 (02) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 21 June 2008 - Volume 02
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Idiomatica" 2008.06.20 (06) [E]

When I was growing up in Scotland the toilet was normally referred to as
the "bathroom".

"Toilet" was considered posh and only used when visiting people and
places you didn't know very well.

"Lavvy" was also quite normal though considered a bit crude.

As schoolboys we would normally refer to it as "the bog", though of
course there were other expressions such as "the shitehoose" and "the
wee hoose" ("wee" here meaning "little", so it's actually a cute
euphemism).

British Sign Language also has large numbers of signs for toilet, from
the transparent to the obscure. These are important signs because it's
not usual for a Deaf person to walk off without saying where they're
going: you can't call after them to find out, after all.

Signs that mime (though mime is stylised in sign languages):

   o    pulling a chain on a cistern;
   o    turning a handle on a cistern;
   o    pushing a button on a cistern;
   o    washing hands;

(now I'm thinking, what a strange word, "cistern", where does that come
from?!)

and those that are more abstract:

   o    holding flat hand vertically and tapping the index finger edge
against the right cheek (if it's the right hand), twice: obscure but
looks like it might be a variant of the sign for "private" or else
"call";
   o    extending middle finger from wrist and rubbing it against chest
near opposite shoulder: I've no idea where this comes from;
   o    fingerspelling "TT";

You can of course get rude and just sign "piddle" and suchlike.

In German Sign Language (do they have a separate sign language which
could be called "Low Saxon Sign Language" I wonder, or is it the same
thing?) I've seen two:

   o    shaking a telephone receiver at the side of the head while
mouthing "shhh" (this strikes us British as a very strange and
intriguing sign indeed!);
   o    holding up the hand with the index finger and thumb curved and
the other fingers fanned so that it displays the letters "WC" on a
single hand.

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Idiomatica

Hi, Sandy!

This is all interesting stuff. You wrote about German signing for "toilet":

   o    shaking a telephone receiver at the side of the head while
mouthing "shhh" (this strikes us British as a very strange and
intriguing sign indeed!);

My immediate reaction to this description was that it means "Someone is
calling me (on the phone) ... but not really, you know."  Of course, we need
to remind the youngsters among us that all telephones used to have landlines
and were in certain rooms of houses (typically hallways), so that people
usually had to leave to make or receive calls. The shaking receiver sign may
mean "ringing telephone". The "shhh" sign may be a classifier for "taboo
replacement" (saying it in place of something that ought not be said). I
have no idea if any of this is factual. All I can say is that the sign
didn't seem strange to me when I read your description. It would be
interesting to see if the "shhh" sign is used for other euphemisms as well.

Aside from this, let

As schoolboys we would normally refer to it as "the bog", though of
course there were other expressions such as "the shitehoose" and "the
wee hoose" ("wee" here meaning "little", so it's actually a cute
euphemism).

I heard "bog" in this sense used in Australia, and it seemed similarly
coarse.

Scots *shitehoose* [ˈʃəɪthus] would be very well understood by Low Saxon
speakers, for their language has a similar sounding cognate: *schythuus* (*
Schiethuus* [ˈʃiːthuːs]), plural *schythuys'* (*Schiethüüs'* [ˈʃiːthyːˑz]).

There's another choice in Low Saxon: *Pardemang* [ˌpʰaːdeˈmaˑŋ(k)] ~ *
Paddemang* [ˌpʰadeˈmaˑŋ(k)] ~ *Parremang* [ˌpʰaˑreˈmaˑŋ(k)]. Obviously, this
one comes from French *appartement* which carries the basic sense of
"separate quarter(s)".

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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