by The purpose of World Toilet Day is, of course, to highlight how many people in the world lack access to private or safe basic toilet facilities. That aim is very laudable. And talking of ‘aim’ brings to mind that sign you might encounter, for example, in a twee B&B — I shouldn’t, I know, because it’s puerile and tasteless, but why change the habit of a lifetime? — directed at male micturators: We aim to please. You aim, too, please. But I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t, instead, want to plumb the depths of the word’s back passage, I mean backstory – which, as it turns out, is rather illuminating. First, though, here’s a riddle to set your neurons a-twinkle: what’s the connection between toilets and posh wallpaper?
If English is going down the toilet, as some believe, it’s usually the Yanks who are to blame. And, unsurprisingly perhaps, they are responsible for the latest twist in the very long story of a word that’s been running and running since the sixteenth century. Once upon a (long long) time (ago), rather than referring to the bathroom, loo, smallest room, privy, jakes, thunder-box, garderobe, house of easement, crapper, bog, khazi, etc., (odd how many of those slang terms are British — does it reflect a national scatological obsession?) toilet meant ‘A piece of cloth used as a wrapper or covering for clothes.’ ‘You’re kidding me!’ Yeah, no, really. It did. How that shift happened is a long story, best told by reverse time travel. So, follow me boldly round the u-bend of etymology. On our cloacal journey we’ll see how a word can constantly morph as speakers give it new meanings, so that it wouldn’t recognize itself even if it found itself in its soup. That journey gives us a hopefully easy-to-read timeline. And I trust you won’t think me too anal-retentive in going through all this. Or, indeed, that all that follows is pure bovine scatology. The dates that follow are the first recorded uses of the word in the meaning defined, according to the OED. Quotations are added for literary or historical interest. In incarnations 4, 5, and 6 the pronunciation would have been /twɑːˈlɛt/, imitating the French /twalɛt/. And many of the word’s earlier meanings seem to have been borrowed from the Protean meanings of the French word. Several of the examples in the OED are from translations, illustrating the word’s original frogginness. Note, too, the folk etymology in the 1803 example of category 7, and the sort of naïve phonetic rendering in the 1682 example under section 8.
- 1894 – “receptacle for you know what.” I saw him sitting on the toilet with all his clothes on. N.Y. Court of Appeals: Rec. & Briefs 19 Dec. (1897) 134
- 1886 – “room or building.”
- 1790 – “A dressing room (in later use esp. one equipped with washing facilities).”
- 1752 – “Chiefly in form toilette. Manner or style of dressing; dress, costume. Also (as a count noun): a dress or costume, a gown. Now arch. and rare.”
- 1688 – “Chiefly in form toilette. The reception of visitors by a lady during the concluding stages of her toilet, esp. fashionable in the 18th cent.”
- 1684 – “Frequently in form toilette. The action or process of washing, dressing, or arranging the hair. Frequently in to make one’s toilet.”
- 1667 The dressing table covered by this cloth; a toilet table. Obs.
- 1665 – “A cloth cover for a dressing table, formerly often of rich material and workmanship; ..Obs.”
- 1664 – “A shawl to cover the head or shoulders; spec. a cloth put over the shoulders during shaving or hairdressing. Obs.”
- 1538 – “Chiefly Sc[ottish]. A piece of cloth used as a wrapper or covering for clothes. Obs.”
Like everything useful in the modern world, ‘toilet’ — the word, at any rate — is thus a Scots invention.
[Alternative Facts advert kindly sponsored by the Scottish National Party.]
How direct the line from one meaning to the next is is not clear. What is clear is how one little word can substantially flush out older meanings as it moves through the cistern, I mean system. I was almost forgetting my little riddle. Toilet comes from French toilette, which is a diminutive of the French for ‘cloth’, toile. If you want some elegant, chintzy, shabby chic wallpaper you might be interested in toile de jouy, which is ‘A type of printed calico with a characteristic floral, figure, or landscape design on a light background.’[i] I take this to be the town of Stirling, site of one of the Stewarts’ most important castles/palaces. The date of 1538 would make sense as relating to Mary’s QoSc’s father, James V (1512-1542, ane other scottis monarke killed aff by thon inglis bastarts – [steady on! how did that mad Nationalist get in here? Ed.]), whose wife, Mary of Guise, was French. This meaning of the French toilette is one of the several meanings imported into English. The close links between France and Scotland at this time might explain the original importing of the term.
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Great post! My grandma (born in about 1880) always referred to the loo as the cabinet, pronounced in the French fashion. I’ve never heard anyone else say that. Karin
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Thanks for the comment, Karin. Glad you enjoyed it. Might I ask, where was your grandma from? ‘Cabinet’ said in a French way sounds soooo sophisticated; I shall adopt it immediately.
Agree with Karin, great post, thanks. Do you know by any chance, when the word started to be non-U? I have always been taught, not necessarily by my betters, that “toilet” was infra dig, and that lavatory was the only acceptable alternative to loo, other than euphemisms like bathroom. They don’t have that ridiculous distinction in America, but I have nonetheless never been able to bring myself to say “toilet”. Apparently I can’t even write the stupid thing without quotation marks, a pathetic attempt to distance myself socially from using it.
Hi, Margaret.
Good to hear from you – as always – and glad you like it. I had been a bit worried it was OTT. Funnily enough, the whole ‘toilet, loo, lavatory’ thing is the topic of my next ‘toilet talk’ blog.
‘Toilet’ was cited as non-U in Nancy Mitford’s 1956 ‘Noblesse Oblige’, which started the whole U/non-U craze. Actually, re-skimming it, I can only find reference to toilet paper being non-U, but that implies toilet (lavatory is U.) In any case, the pub. date means that the word was non-U before then, but for how long it had been, who knows! I’ll have to do some further digging before blogging.