Lavatory Defined

Greetings ladies and gentlemen. Here's our effort for this week -- read on!

Word of the Week: Lavatory

The sign on the door said "Bathroom."

I've walked past that door perhaps a hundred times in the last five or six years. The most recent time I found myself in that hallway, because of a certain urgency, I took a chance and tried the door.

Like my friend Guido used to say, "Vye-ola!" The door was not locked and inside were (how do I say this with delicacy?) a . . . toilet and a lavatory.

A toilet is, in our day anyway, defined as a porcelain device for the collection and disposal of human waste. A lavatory is . . . a porcelain device for the washing of human hands.

But the sign on the door said "Bathroom." I made use of both porcelain facilities, but I certainly didn't take a bath.

What should the sign have said? Delicacy limits what the sign could say. We're too sensitive to put up a sign simply saying "Toilet."

Neither do we really want to put up a sign saying "Intergender Toilet." Sometimes we revert to hieroglyphics so we use little stick drawings of a man (without skirt) and a woman (with skirt).

Even written in Egyptian, then, we're stuck with a euphemism. A more realistic hieroglyphic would be a stick figure with man-parts and another with woman-parts.

Sometimes the sign on the door will say "Restroom." Other than my Dad, however, I've not known anyone who actually ''rests'' in there. (We knew when Dad headed for the restroom holding the Denver Post that we would have to wait at least an hour before we could rest, too.)

Same goes for "rest stop." When you stop between Rock Springs and Rawlins, do you really "rest?"

The British, in their quaint use of the English language, call it a "water closet." This is because early toilets were made with the "water closet" (tank) mounted in a former closet, high on the wall behind the stool, supposedly to gain momentum for the flush mode, or perhaps so the newfangled equipment would fit in the small closet space.

(The word "stool" stood out there, didn't it? Originally, a toilet "stool" was called that because it is used for a unique type of seating. It's used as a euphemism for something else now, isn't it?)

We could just put room designation signs up saying, "Crapper." Hold on, that's not as gross as I made it sound. "Crapper" was the name of a plumber who, two centuries ago, invented the flush toilet. From his legitimate name came the rude name for toilet.

See? Are we learning?

While I was in grade school, students and teachers alike referred to the toilet room as the "lavatory." I was in college before I looked the word up and found its original meaning.

Let me turn this over at this point to Lindsley Rinard, a bright light in our lives who happens to have been Laura's English and German teacher in Idaho. Rinard writes:

"It is with great interest that I see you are going to educate us on the meaning of the word 'lavatory.'

"Misuse of it has been one of my pet peeves ever since I moved to the Intermountain West. As a teacher, I tried to set it right but I don't know how well I succeeded. Here are some points I covered:

"1. Webster today is not a guide, but only a record. The latest edition includes the speech patterns of the very least well-educated people among us. Formerly the documented and recorded speech of the middle and upper classes were a guide.

"2. The word 'Lavatory' over the door of a public restroom does not indicate that 'lavatory' means 'toilet.' Also in that room is a basin to wash, or lave, your hands.

(The Latin word lavare means "to wash." The Latin word around which today's letter revolves is "lavatorium," or, room in which washing is done. It's familiar also to speakers of Spanish as in "Lavarselo," wash yourself. There's also "Lava" brand soap, a double entendre on the word for wash and the word for pumice. --th)

"Many years ago, we had engaged an elderly lady to care for our young sick child for a short time while we would be gone.

"I told the lady when to check the baby's temperature. I included the instruction that afterwards, she could just rinse off the thermometer at the lavatory and replace it in its holder.

"She went ballistic. 'You mean wash it in the toilet?' That was my introduction to this use of the word. But I have run into it many times since.

"3. My latest Webster gives "toilet" as the third meaning to "lavatory." With Webster, the meaning listed first is the more nearly correct meaning, that is, more widely used. And that first meaning is given as a room with a basin for washing and perhaps a toilet.

"The study of Latin should be required for all capable students in the public schools."

Thank you Teacher Rinard.

Restaurant review

Many if not most restaurants are included in this scathing review: Terrible coffee.

Some coffee drinkers say the brew tastes bad because the establishment uses cheap coffee -- such as Farmer Brothers.

Not so. If the coffee tastes bad, it's because the restauranteur is ignorant or lazy or both. Even Farmer Brothers can taste good. The solution is simple.

The coffee maker must be cleaned often. The higher the volume of coffee served, the more often the cleaning must take place. "Once a month" isn't enough. Once a day is a better idea.

I've picked on "Randy's" in Evans because of the operator insists on serving delicious food in cheap plastic baskets. But I will say Randy's serves the best coffee I've ever tasted. Bar none.

But. Both of Greeley's Village Inns, the Kitchen, the Barnstormer at the airport, the Country Inn, Cattleman's, the Ranch, ad infinitum . . . well, yuck.

If Randy's can serve good coffee, the rest of the eateries can do it too. Do you think these places will clean up their act? Suggest it to them. The worst that can happen is they'll look at you like you're from Mars.

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Next week's word: Projection.

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Gripes? Complaints? Whines? or Comments? Adoration? Puppy love? Feel free to express yourself in the comments!