redfiona99 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
redfiona99) wrote2006-11-17 05:41 pm
redfiona99) wrote2006-11-17 05:41 pm
Entry tags:
In futherance to the poll
here: http://redfiona99.livejournal.com/362970.html
About the naming of toilet/bathroom/any number of other things facilities and how it relates to location of the namer, the results are in. And have been graphed only I don't know how to transfer pictures around in linux.
I should explain the reason for the question. A fellow PhD student, in the psychology department, is German and uses bathroom when she is speaking in English. She still finds it difficult to get used to people in the UK using toilet, despite the fact that it's the same word as in German. I posited that this was because she had learnt a lot of her English from Americans. This is why I asked for location as well as name.
The results are as follows:
Bathroom 6
Toilet 3
Other 9
Broken down by location the results
US and bathroom 4
UK and bathroom 1
Canada and bathroom 1
Rest of world and bathroom 0
US and toilet 0
UK and toilet 2
Canada and toilet 0
Rest of world and toilet 1
US and other 3
UK and other 1
Canada and other 2
Rest of world and other 4
Another thing I found interesting, that doesn't show up in this, is that Canadians and Canadians only use washroom. Toilet seems to be restricted to the UK and Australia, as does loo. There's also a large difference between polite use and impolite use so I might re-run this at a later date to cover that too.
Sadly my hypothesis must go unproved because some English people do use bathroom for toilets therefore she could have picked it up from English English teachers too. I'd still say it was more likely that she'd picked it up from Americans but sadly I don't have a large enough sample to draw conclusions.
About the naming of toilet/bathroom/any number of other things facilities and how it relates to location of the namer, the results are in. And have been graphed only I don't know how to transfer pictures around in linux.
I should explain the reason for the question. A fellow PhD student, in the psychology department, is German and uses bathroom when she is speaking in English. She still finds it difficult to get used to people in the UK using toilet, despite the fact that it's the same word as in German. I posited that this was because she had learnt a lot of her English from Americans. This is why I asked for location as well as name.
The results are as follows:
Bathroom 6
Toilet 3
Other 9
Broken down by location the results
US and bathroom 4
UK and bathroom 1
Canada and bathroom 1
Rest of world and bathroom 0
US and toilet 0
UK and toilet 2
Canada and toilet 0
Rest of world and toilet 1
US and other 3
UK and other 1
Canada and other 2
Rest of world and other 4
Another thing I found interesting, that doesn't show up in this, is that Canadians and Canadians only use washroom. Toilet seems to be restricted to the UK and Australia, as does loo. There's also a large difference between polite use and impolite use so I might re-run this at a later date to cover that too.
Sadly my hypothesis must go unproved because some English people do use bathroom for toilets therefore she could have picked it up from English English teachers too. I'd still say it was more likely that she'd picked it up from Americans but sadly I don't have a large enough sample to draw conclusions.