Linda Fishwick objects to the use of “bathroom” to designate the room where one goes to relieve oneself (Letters, 25 February). Unfortunately, two of her preferred terms are equally euphemistic: “lavatory” originally meant the room where one washed (and still has that meaning in the context of abbey ruins), and performing one’s toilet was the process of dressing, arranging one’s hair etc – usually done in private. Perhaps she might like to adopt the accurate but inoffensive Elizabethan term “the house of easement”.
Bruce Holman
Waterlooville, Hampshire
• I am not sure it is necessary to travel to Uganda to hear euphemistic talk of the “smallest room” (Letters, 26 February). There appears to be some uncertainty over who actually first said it, but there is a well-known response to a poor theatre review that goes: “I am in the smallest room of the house. I have your review in front of me. Soon it will be behind me.”
Michael Egan
Umeå, Sweden
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