Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 November 11

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November 11

Triple negative in Sling Blade

• Doyle: Was you in lockup for cutting someone with a hatchet or something?
• Karl: I ain't never used no hatchet that I remember.

What does this triple negative Karl's sentence mean? Rizosome (talk) 00:23, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

It means he did not recall using a hatchet. Multiple negatives are often used in colloquial English, for emphasis. Like with the last time you asked about multiple negatives. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:00, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, generally single, double and triple negatives all amount to the same thing. Theoretically, the double negatives would negate each other, but that's very unlikely to happen in everyday speech. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 03:19, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

And it's no nay never, no nay never no more. --T*U (talk) 10:19, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

I ain't never did no wrong. –Austronesier (talk) 10:33, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Dorothy: "If you were king, you wouldn't be afraid of anybody?" Lion: "Not nobody, no nohow!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:02, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you all Rizosome (talk) 01:48, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

It is an oft-repeated falsehood that double negatives cancel out in English. While it is possible for them to do so, with special emphasis and context (Pinker gives as an example "Try as I might, I can't get no satisfaction"), in nearly all cases double (or multiple) negatives are ungrammatical in all standard Englishes, but it is patently false to claim that, for example "I never used no hatchet" means "I used a hatchet": almost all native English speakers, unless they are being deliberately perverse, will understand it to mean "I didn't use a hatchet". --ColinFine (talk) 17:42, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Railway carriage facilities

We are all accustomed to the American term "bathroom" for the household toilet, and its use seems to have been universally adopted by Australian teenage girls, but it does seem rather grand for the cramped and utilitarian cabinets on trains (as in The Commuter (film)). Doug butler (talk) 21:35, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

I've changed it and linked it, citing WP:COMMONALITY. Bazza (talk) 21:55, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

I'll revert that change in accordance with WP:COMMONALITY#Strong national ties to a topic. "Toilet" in American usage is a plumbing fixture, not a room, and "bathroom" is not a "rather grand" word. --184.145.50.17 (talk) 00:17, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

I would argue that although it's an American-made film, it doesn't meet WP:COMMONALITY#Strong national ties to a topic in the way that, say, an article on the American railroad [sic] system does. I'll leave it for a while to see what others think. (At the very least, it should be bathroom.) 10:39, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

I think it would be problematic to say that the money had been "left in the toilet" regardless of the English variety of the article. To American readers, it sounds like it would get wet and possibly soaked with bodily waste. I understand that "bathroom" could also be confusing to some readers, but less so, I think.

Maybe in British English articles, "water closet" could be used? Some Americans might not know exactly what it means, but at least they'd know they didn't know, rather than coming across a sentence with an apparently clear meaning that simply wasn't intended.

(The problem with "lavatory" is that strictly speaking it really just means something you wash something in, again not a room. "Washroom" is possibly OK.) --Trovatore (talk) 23:56, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

wikt:lavatory seems more natural to me. See definition 5. Also, "carriage" should be "car" in an American setting. 173.49.228.131 (talk) 12:25, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Or "washroom". And to an American, a "carriage" is either a horse-drawn vehicle or, for those of us old enough to remember, a part of a typewriter. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:11, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

U.S. patent 1,166,291, "Train toilet device", is a patent granted for "toilet facilities comprising toilet waste receiving, treatment, storage, disposal or removal devices". U.S. patent 11,058,260 has the title "Lavatory unit for vehicle", but said lavatory is "provided for washing feet". The "Background art" section states: A lavatory unit for a vehicle, such as an aircraft, a watercraft, a road vehicle, and a railway vehicle include a toilet and a wash basin in the lavatory unit (see International Patent Publication No. WO 2014/141693).  --Lambiam 16:46, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

This American would call that cramped and utilitarian cabinet a restroom, though it's not likely to be restful. —Tamfang (talk) 02:35, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

What do Americans call a room with a bath in it but no toilet? HiLo48 (talk) 05:24, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Is there such a thing? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:59, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs: Yes, but maybe not in the part of the world where you live. Bazza (talk) 10:38, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Bazza, I alluded to this above, but you didn't respond directly, so I want to make the point separately: The COMMONALITY argument for "toilet" fails because, in American English, "toilet" does not mean a room, ever. It only means the plumbing fixture. Finding a common word for the room containing the plumbing fixture seems challenging. --Trovatore (talk) 18:21, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

But a usage that names the room after the plumbing fixture it contains is far lore logical and comprehensible than one that names it after a plumbing feature that is very often not there at all. HiLo48 (talk) 01:54, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

I made no comment on what was "logical". I suppose "toilet room" would be "logical", if a bit direct. The fact is that calling the room a "toilet" is in tension with WP:COMMONALITY, because Americans will likely not understand it. (I would think it would be problematic even for non-Americans in the context of that particular film, given that as I understand it they use "toilet" also as a word for the fixture, and the fixture is something you could possibly put money in, even if the idea is not appealing.) --Trovatore (talk) 02:09, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

@Trovatore: I was waiting to see how the conversation went; it's gone very well! As a British English speaker, I found calling a loo on a train "bathroom" as weird (if not more so) as some of your (assumed) compatriots find calling it a "toilet" (at least it contains one of those). The standard European (and further) term is "WC", and that would be the best and probably most accurate from my point of view. I know about "restroom", which seems as absurd as "bathroom" (as Tamfang suggests above); "washroom" and "lavatory" look like they're heading to fulfill as much as WP:COMMONALITY as might be expected in this delightful conundrum. Bazza (talk) 12:04, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

This is really a particularly vexing case for COMMONALITY. "Toilet" will simply be misunderstood by many American readers in any context where the misreading is physically possible (I suppose they'd find a pragmatic workaround for He went into the toilet and waited, because the natural reading isn't physically possible). "Lavatory" really means "sink" (I remember reading in my new-student material that the rooms in the Caltech hovses each had a "lavatory", which seemed very convenient, and being disappointed when I found out it was just a sink). "Washroom" and "water closet" are unusual or dated, and don't technically cover rooms with dry or chemical toilets. "Men's room" and "ladies' room" open another obvious can of worms. Do Brits understand "restroom"? That really might be the best common option if so. --Trovatore (talk) 21:04, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

@Trovatore: Brits understand "restroom" probably as much as Americans understand "toilet": we know the meaning (probably) from films, but would never use it. I do not think its near the top of the candidate list. You haven't mentioned "WC" which is another option I mentioned and, from a British- and other-variants point of view, is a strong runner; although a quick look at some American dictionary definitions suggest it might be more often understood as "without charge". "American: a room equipped with a toilet and sink", "2. a room with conveniences for washing and usually with one or more toilets", "US: 1. A room or compartment with a toilet and washbasin" and "US: 2a. a room equipped with a washbowl and flush toilet" all suggest that "lavatory" is a good candidate (especially for the meaning required in the article which gave rise to this interesting discourse). Bazza (talk) 13:35, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever heard "lavatory" used to mean a sink. Words "really mean" what they are used to mean. DuncanHill (talk) 16:30, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

@DuncanHill: I agree, but the problem is often (as here) that they mean different things to different people and sometimes those different meanings can collide. Bazza (talk) 17:09, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Quite, and that's why "commonality" is a pipe-dream. DuncanHill (talk) 17:13, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

But at the very least we can avoid using words that a large portion of our readership will misunderstand, and have no reason to suspect that they're misunderstanding, like "toilet" used to mean a room. --Trovatore (talk) 17:53, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Or "bathroom" to mean a room with a bath, or "restroom" to mean a room for resting. There does not appear to be a word that won't confuse someone if they try hard enough. What a shame we can't highlight words and make them link to the article explaining what is meant. If someone came up with a way to do that we could build an entire encyclopaedia around it! I would call it "Clickipedia" as you would click on the links to visit the pages. DuncanHill (talk) 18:03, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

@DuncanHill, I think the cases are not really parallel. British readers are not really going to interpret "restroom" to mean a place that you rest. It's probably in at least their passive vocabulary, but even if it's not, they would have notice that there was something they needed to look up.

On the other hand, "toilet" to mean a room is actively misleading to American readers. They know what a toilet is; it's just that the meaning they give it is not the one intended.

As for linking, that doesn't really help, or not enough anyway. Why would you follow a link to a word you know, when you're not interested in reading about that thing at the given time? Most readers are going to expect it to just be an instance of WP:OVERLINK, and most of the time, they'll be right. --Trovatore (talk) 20:26, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm not at all convinced by the argument that Americans are as ignorant of unAmerican English as you seem to be making them out to be. I appreciate that they are molly-coddled by American publishers who routinely translate British books into American for their benefit, and by Wikipedia editors who seem to regard them as needing everything spoon-fed, and perhaps you know them better than I do, but still I do credit them with a little knowledge and intelligence. What's a common word to you, like restroom, is not a common word for everyone. Would it look like overlinking to you? This is an ideal situation to use a link, as there isn't a common word that is common to different Englishes. DuncanHill (talk) 20:56, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

It's not about being "ignorant". Many Americans are aware that Brits sometimes use "toilet" to mean a room. The question is, why would they reach for that meaning, when they come across a sentence that is apparently well-formed and clearly indicates that the money was left in the plumbing fixture? --Trovatore (talk) 21:21, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

I don't think I ever said (which is British English for "I am bloody well certain I didn't say") the article should use toilet. The points I am trying to make are 1) what is a common word to you may well not be to anyone else, so linking is helpful, and 2) commonality is not achievable in this case and it is a waste of time seeking it (and to be frank I think it unlikely ever to be a worthwhile endeavour on any large scale). I have absolutely no problem with articles about American things being written in American, just so long as usages which are likely to confuse are linked. I don't think that Americans are the best judges of which Americanisms are well-enough known outside America to leave unlinked - just as British people are unlikely to be the best judges of which British usages are likely to be unfamiliar to Americans. DuncanHill (talk) 21:32, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

The Commuter is an American film that takes place in and around New York City. The most common American term for a public toilet and sink facility is restroom and I believe that is the best term to use, even though it is a euphemism. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 18:37, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

What a pity "WC" is not an accepted term in the US, as it is seen on half the land agents' signs in this country, unambiguously proclaiming a separate "little room", though I doubt many would associate the abbreviation with the curious term "water closet". Thanks guys, I've enjoyed the replies. Doug butler (talk) 20:38, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Here in the U.S., such people are called "real estate agents , and similar rooms in private homes are called "half baths". Admittedly illogical but commonplace. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 21:42, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

My 2¢: I think lavatory would probably be the most widely understood (without the likelihood of serious misinterpretation) choice, especially since it seems to be standard usage for a similar facility on airplanes. Note that our article Passenger train toilet is mostly about the "throne" one sits upon. Deor (talk) 21:46, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Deor, in the U.S., the most common meaning of "lavatory" is "a sink or washbasin in a bathroom", although the broader definition is sometimes used. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 22:43, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

How about "toilet facilities"? I thought I was inventing that as a neutral descriptive term, but turns out it's a lot more common than that: English, AE, BE. Cheerio, Later, dudes and dudettes, Mathglot (talk) 21:56, 15 November 2021 (UTC)