Up until the 1960s (at least!) the proper terminology in America was the 'powder room', as of course it would be too crude to admit they were going to do anything but powder their noses!

Ah, puritan and Victorian mores, thank gods you are no longer the ruling ones!

There's a pub in south Yorkshire, called the Packhorse Inn, right by the Pennine Way where the ladies is labelled "Powder Room", the gents is labelled "Gun Room"...

> I tend to use loo (can someone explain where this originated) <

The "loo" is an English corruption of the French "les lieux" -- which is short for "les lieux d'aisance". That expression much resembles the American "restroom" in fact.

1. the word homely in the UK means pleasant (or cozy, I think...), whereas in the US it means ugly.

2. A bum bag in the UK is a fanny pack in the US. And the word fanny doesn't mean your butt in the UK, it's a rather derogatory term for external female sex organs. But I have a silly question about that... In the 1951 film Scrooge (A Christmas Carol), the name of Scrooge's sister (who died tragically in childbirth) is Fanny. Which apparently was not an obscene word at the time (or they probably wouldn't have put it in the film). So is that designation somewhat recent? And do people in the UK cringe every time they see the film over the holidays?

Etymology of "loo" - continued.

In the Middle Ages, before the invention of the flushing toilet, people would use a chamber pot under their bed. To empty it, they would simply chuck the contents out of the window onto the street below. To warn passers by, they shouted the Norman French expression, "Guardez l'eau!" - i.e. beware of the water. This became corrupted over time into "Gardy loo!". Hence today in England we say "loo".

(Not to be confused with Waterloo, which is the town in Belgium where Wellington cleaned Napoleon's clock, or Bakerloo, which is a Tube line that originally ran from Baker Street to Waterloo station.)

Fanny is, or was, a pet name for Frances, though I doubt many would use it now because of it's other meaning. Nor are many people in the UK called Randy for similar reasons...

I would think it's always had the obscene meaning, but of course, nice people wouldn't acknowledge understanding it as such, so there wasn't a problem about using it as a name.

<u>Fanny</u> is in the title of at least seven movies that have been widely distributed since 1922.

Are these all marketed in the UK as <u>Bum</u>?

Kamahinaohoku, this ones for you :

Three men and their wives died in a terrible road accident. They stood in pairs in a line-up,(sorry, make that a 'queue') outside the Pearly Gates waiting for St. Peter to call them up and into Heaven.

St. Peter called the first couple up. He looked at the man and said &quot; Why should I let you into heaven ? All your life you worried about nothing but the bottle. Day in and Day out you did nothing but drink, drink, drink. You even married a woman whose name is Sherry &quot;

He turned to the next couple, looked at the man and said, &quot; And as for you, you spent all your life worrying about the pound and the dollar. Day in and Day out you spent all your time count nothing but all your money, money, money. Why, you even married a woman whose name was Penny !&quot;

When he heard all of this, the third man turned around to his wife and said, &quot; Yikes ! At this rate, we're never going to get in, Fanny.&quot;

Mathieu - LOL!!!

Love this comments on restroom and toilet. I lady I work with calls it the washroom. Our first trip to England we got off the plane at Gatwick and I told my husband I was heading for the restroom, I looked all over and finally realized that the sign for &quot;Toilets&quot; was what I was looking for. We both thought how rude. Still sounds rude to me but I guess it's an accurate description.
That's what I love about the English, the language is very accurate whereas the American english is somewhat vague.
As another example I love seeing &quot;Way Out&quot; for exit on the tube. I still get a chuckle over that one every trip.

What about the glorious term &quot;the bog&quot;?

I'm a commercial photographer and one of my passions, when visiting England, is to record some of the beautiful cemeteries, particularly the Victorian &quot;gardens&quot; such as Highgate, Kensal Green, &amp; Brompton in London.

I have seen a great many monuments of women named &quot;Fanny,&quot; from the early 1800's to around the time of WW I.

I know for a fact that it is &quot;poor form&quot; to use the word nowadays, but obviously this is indeed a fairly recent connotation. Particulalry in a Victorian cemetery I seriously doubt they would have dared carve the name if there was even the slightest hint of impropriety.

By the by, anyone remember the Bee Gee's tune in the late 70's, early 80's, &quot;FANNY BE TENDER WITH MY LOVE?&quot;

(Australian lads, but raised in England.)

Hmmmmm....

Fanny is the same as Dick. It could be someone's nickname, or it can be a euphemism for a sex organ. You wouldn't blush if you turned on the TV and watched a rerun of &quot;The Dick Van Dyke Show&quot; would you, sniggering everytime someone said, &quot;Hi, Dick&quot;? Or would you?

Patrick, great story! Haven't heard the word &quot;dunny&quot; for a while - it's still hanging on grimly in relation to old outhouse-style toilets but otherwise going the way of many other colourful and sometimes puzzling colloquialisms. There are more guys than blokes around these days.

BTilke, take a deep breath - I don't know how you manage to read a &quot;sneer&quot; into my posts, but I can assure you that that one was meant as a simple statement of fact, devoid of value judgement. It's a fact worth knowing for American travellers who may otherwise feel too guilty not to tip, and unwittingly help introduce the custom into countries where it's not appropriate. I respect Americans' right to run their remuneration systems any way they like, and expect the same courtesy in return.

I did appreciate the rundown on the splendiferous ladies' loos in US department stores though - needless to say I haven't spent any time in them. For that matter, like most blokes I spend as little time as possible in a department store - 15 minutes should be enough time for anyone to buy a pair of pants or shoes, unless there's a queue (line) outside the fitting room. No wonder the men's wear section is always near the entrance.

Sorry, but I'm going to drag the discussion back to Fanny.

Brits of a certain age will doubtless remember Fanny Craddock, a TV chef of the sixties. As a boy I remember Fanny as a seriously scary looking woman of indeterminate age whose face was absolutely caked in make-up. She was invariably accompanied by her &quot;husband&quot; (were they really married?) Johnny, who always looked as though he had been hitting the cooking sherry when Fanny's back was turned. As I recall, Johnny's sole function was to tidy up after Fanny &amp; to be on the receiving end of her moans &amp; complaints about his overall inefficiencies.

Legend has it that on one live TV appearance Fanny made some delicious doughnuts, which were very much enjoyed by the programme's host. He then suposedly closed the show by encouraging the viewers to have a go at copying Fanny's recipie, saying &quot;I hope all your doughnuts turn out like Fanny's&quot;.

Ahh.......happy days!

Jim

I suppose this story isn't limited to the UK, but I'll share it anyway.

On my first trip to London, we were staying at a small hotel, nice neighborhood, but simple hotel, no elevator.
I had confirmed to the hotel that we would be arriving after midnight, after flying from Paris. They said, by fax, they would hold the room for our late arrival.

What they didn't say was that their front desk wasn't staffed from midnight to 7am, and that there would be no one there to let us in. So we arrived at the hotel at about 12:30 am, and even after pounding at the door, could not even get into the lobby.

I pulled out my trusty map and guidebook and we went to a coin telephone at the corner to try to call other hotels, but, it being our first trip to London, we had no idea how to make the phone work and we didn't have coins anyway.

I determined where the closest alternative reasonable hotel might be, and we walked there about 5 blocks, dragging our luggage (this was before wheeled luggage.) At the other hotel, nice desk clerk at first pointed out that it was Wimbledon week (which is why we were there) and that all rooms in the hotel were booked, but he finally determined that one other guest was a no-show, so we took that dragged our luggage back to the original hotel and had it out with them (they were threatening to charge us for the first night because we hadn't shown up for our reservation.) Everything was smoothed out eventually.

Lessons:
Bring reservation emails or faxes in hard copy form with you so you can prove, if you have to, what information was exchanged and confirmed.

Keep luggage manageable, you never know if you're going to have to carry it farther or lift it higher than you think.

Keep your map and guidebook and faxes and emails out and accessible, not buried in your suitcase.

Confirm and reconfirm your arrival plans and be very specific. Never assume.

Learn how to work the telephones.

Have a travel companion who can handle difficulties and be helpful or at least silent, rather than whining or angry.

<i>&quot;I looked all over and finally realized that the sign for &quot;Toilets&quot; was what I was looking for.&quot;</i>

When we were in Scotland, we made the mistake of driving into Edinburgh. We ended up parking a long way from the Royal Mile area and as we were walking into town, my mother mentioned that she needed to find a ladies room - and to keep an eye out for &quot;Toilet&quot; signs.

My dad said he spotted one so we started heading down this side street to find it. We walked for a little bit and still didn't see it so we decided we'd better head back.

When we got back out to the main street, Dad pointed to the sign he had seen and it didn't say &quot;Toilet&quot; - it said &quot;To Let&quot; Which, of course, made us all laugh and Mom's dilema even more threatening .

Just out of curiosity why do Americans consider toilet to be rude? Seems a good description of what it is

It's not that the word toilet is rude on its own, but it just refers to the actual plumbing appliance. Normally I only would talk about the toilet as something to repair, to clean, or to replace. For some reason, the word is just not used to mean the room it is in. When used to describe a place you want to go to, it sounds a little off to me, sort of like saying what you're going to be doing in the bathroom, which is really too much information. I don't know why the phrase developed this way in the U.S., and not in the U.K.