>>>Until it dawned on me that you were using the European term toilet to refer to the restroom (or bathroom),
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>>There was nothing to have a bath in, or have a rest on (unless you're the, ahem, concentrated reader-on-the-throne type), it was just two pieces of porcelain (the seat and the pissoir) and a small basin, maybe 3'x5' - no place to bathe or rest :). OK, just an urinal.

What I find humorous is how Eau-de-toilette (water of toilet) is cologne. I saw a store display once. Stuffed puppies on the left and Tommy Hilfiger cologne on the right. I turned to my wife and indicating the puppies and then the cologne, proclaimed loudly, "Look, Dear! Dog Scent" - The display was removed by the next day! :)

By the way, I was watching a television programme called The Adventure of English. The host mentioned the source of some cuss words. It's so funny to see the topic covered by academia.

Look for "The English Lexicon of Cussing" http://www.unm.edu/~abqteach/linguistics/02-08-10.htm

By the way, ask a French speaker to say "The seal in the pool". I mean the marine mammal and a swimming pool. Don't be offended by how it sounds.


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>>>the image you described was rather interesting. :o)
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>>":o)" indeed :).
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>>> I haven't been to Europe for a few years and I've grown accustomed to toilet referring only to the fixture.
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>>The confusion can be created in any direction. For example, we've taken the word "closet" to mean "restroom" - from the British "water closet", assuming that it meant "water loo". No matter that I speak English for so long, I still didn't know that "closet" would actually translate into what we call "plakar" (maybe coming from French "placard", but if it is, we took that one wrong too :). And so it happens that there's a situation where a friend of ours has a full house - some friends are staying until they find better accommodation. "But where do they sleep?" "In the closet."
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>>You can imagine the wrong image we got :).
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>What the Americans call a closet we call a wardrobe. I've known of "somnamicturists" who've used that too! :-)
>
>BTW, one theory for the British word "loo" is supposed to come from the days before sewers when foke just threw there effluent out the window into the street, with the french cry "Gardez l'eau" (watch out for the water) which got corrupted to "gardi loo"
>
>Similarly, "toodaloo" is supposed to come from the WWI and Tommy's inability to pronounce "a tout a l'heure"