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Jonnie Robinson, Curator, English accents and dialects, British Library Sound Archive, writes:
We have endless ways of avoiding direct reference to items we consider unworthy of polite conversation, such as parts of the body, bodily functions and, as here, the toilet. There are a number of euphemistic expressions to do with the size of the room, such as the small room or petty from the French petit or simple allusions to the less unpleasant activities that occur there, such as bathroom and washroom. Indeed the word used here, lavvie, falls into this category as it's clearly an abbreviation for lavatory - itself derived from lavatorium, a place to wash, as in the modern French verb, laver. The word loo, for instance, is thought to have some spurious connexion with Waterloo - rather than refer to the water closet, it seems possible that previous generations found an incredibly imaginative link between water closet, Waterloo and hence loo, thereby avoiding even the slightest reference to any unspeakable activity whatsoever!
Bog or just as commonly the plural bogs, is extremely widely used and both are acknowledged by these speakers here. It was probably originally a reference to the open pits and dung-heaps that were once a common feature throughout the country - often called middens, a word which is still used in some areas by older speakers to refer to the toilet. Indeed this remains an area of vocabulary with a rich stock of localised terms, such as cludgie here and in other parts of Scotland, netty in the north-east of England, dunny in Australia and john in the USA. Dunny, short for dunnekin, is thought to have originated from the combination of dung and ken - Australian and New Zealand slang for den or meeting place for criminals.
Whatever word we use, we seem unable to say it without embarrassment and generally overcome this with humour, as is also demonstrated by the range of expressions used to describe the activities that take place in the toilet. We have slang terms, such as slash here, euphemisms, such as number one and number two, highly unpleasant terms and just plain creative ones, such as pour the totties and jimmy riddle, Cockney Rhyming Slang for piddle, itself an alternative considered acceptable enough to be used to and among children. The imagination and linguistic creativity this requires probably explains the perception that the British are pre-occupied with toilet humour!
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