I have seen a brick outhouse, at Pennsbury Manor, the [restored] estate of William Penn, colonial proprietor of Pennsylvania. It's a three-holer. Must have been the oatmeal (USn expression for "porridge") that caused the necessity for such a large and sturdy privy.
No Kaopectate back then. One of my brother-in-laws(cuņado for those paying attention) used to call the well-built ones "monumental" This was said in Spanish preceded by a reverse hiss.
Not to be gross here but, I remember we had an outhouse at our summer chalet when we were young. It was made of wood and movable for when the hole in the ground became, well, full. Brick outhouses don't sound like they would be all that movable. Do you mean to tell me that they were emptied out??
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Wow, I reread this post to make sure it was o.k. and I see the words summer chalet and it sounds so high-end and fancy.
I wonder if there is a better word for what my parents own. It is a rectangular, one-storey house (no basement), clapboard siding on the outside and no walls on the inside. Welllll, actually, my mom, being the creative sort, not being able to afford actual drywall, stapled old bedspreads to the two by fours to give the illusion of walls. We love it and still go up North every once in a while but 'chalet' looking it is not. Any ideas?
Well we do use camp when we talk in French. It is an 'anglicism' - a word the French have borrowed from the English. But doesn't a camp involve tents more than houses?
Outhouses are still common throughout water-poor rural Australia (flushing considered to be a criminal waste of water). No such thing as a pan service way out there either, so they sit atop a bloody great pit. Usually built of wood and/or corrugated iron and strategically placed to allow the occupant/s to take in the view (typically flat red nothingness...). Inevitably covered by a peppercorn tree for shade (usually magnificent botanic specimens due to the abundant supply of nutrients!!). And, in all seriousness, a wonderful fossicking opportunity 50 to one hundred years later for those of us that collect old bottles. (Gallons of Lysol during its operating life and lots of bacterial action over the decades negate any unpleasantness).
You have probably heard them referred to as "dunnies" - but, for those REALLY in the know, they are called "long drops"!!!
Well, I guess camp it is then. But we don't rough if very much any more since there is now running water (hot water since two years) and electricity.
throughout water-poor rural Australia (flushing considered to be a criminal waste of water). Wow stales, what a description. I am always so amazed at the diversity of the world. Here in Québec you can't throw a brick without hitting a lake (or a church). I am exagerating a bit (about the lakes...not the churches) but there is so much water people don't even spare a thought for it.
Talking about your loo with a view, the toilet at Empress Hut (on the Empress Ridge of Mt Cook - about 10,000 feet ASL) sits astride a ridge. Guess where the byproducts go? It's the ultimate long drop! Interesting place, interesting loo. Probably has one of the best views in the world! But cold, very, very cold ...
BTW Faldage, ol' chap, when you were talking about it being a bust, were you referring to Susie, by any chance?
But cold, very, very cold ... I imagine, CK, that that would give 'inspiration' for things to "move right along"...
My sweet bel, what about vacation cottage or cabin? I thought about 'shack', but that seems a bit low for a clapboard structure. Loved your dot post, by the way! Now, consuelo, if you connect the dots of your chicken pox, you could develop a new art form.
Camp is sometimes used to refer to some pretty well apportioned dwellings in the Adirondacks, but that is the only context I have heard it used in to indicate anything other than a collection of, usually tents, but, at the high end, log shelters that had one side entirely open.
Cabin might work also, but then if we're talking translation to and from Canadien, who knows what to say?
fishing camps I've been to in the GWN are anything but well-apportioned-or-appointed, but the edifices do have solid walls. some are well kept up and others... just trashy. often the only access is via bush pilot.
back in the USA, the National Guard, Scouts and so forth go to summer camps and seldom see the inside of a tent.
Wow, I reread this post to make sure it was o.k. and I see the words summer chalet and it sounds so high-end and fancy.
In Ontario we always used "cottage" to describe the summer vacation home. It seemed to apply to everything from the shacks to those fancy places (with their heat, electricity, running water and likely cable access, looking like something out of a "homes of the future" magazine) that I'd see across the lake from my grandparent's cottage.
Cottage it is then. It sounds very homey - which the cottage was. Actually, it was quite roomy. There was a boys room, a girls room AND my parents had a separate room to themselves - something they did not have at home (they slept in living room on hide-a-bed)
Cottage it is then. It sounds very homey - which the cottage was. Actually, it was quite roomy...
Sounds a lot like my grandparents cottage. Three bedrooms, living room/dining room and kitchen in an "L" shape, and a bathroom, laundry room. It's amazing how roomy they can be even when by city standards they're small. I suppose having all the outdoors also added to it, being an extra room. My grandfather did a lot of work on the place through the years, adding split log steps down to the lake, and garden. I was too young to remember the changes - only the end result. But I've been told about them often enough. My grandparents probably would have stayed there all year if it didn't get quite so *cold*. ;-) A ton of insulation wasn't one of the upgrades, and besides, the water got pumped up from the lake and filtered. The whole contraption would have froze along with the lake and burst if not drained for the winter.
One of the things I remember best was the huge barrel of wood blocks which were the main entertainment for any kids over - the tv never really picked anything up on the antenna. Then there was smell of the pine trees, and one year being there in time for the trilliums blooming in the woods - a wide carpet of them. Very beautiful.
The water freaked me out. I loved to swim, but not the little fishes nipping. ;-)
I hate to go from chalets to outhouses again, but BelM demands, "Do you mean to tell me that they were emptied out?" Oui, ma chčre, c'est įa exactement.
My father-in-law grew up in an area which was, before 1918, adjacent to the city of Baltimore, at which time it was incorporated into the city. It was developed in the 1880s and was a neighborhood of small row houses (some only 9 feet wide) with very small yards in back, and each had a outhouse. There was a service called, of all things, the OED or Odorless Excavation Device, familiarly known as the "honeydipper" which you called for when needed. It was essentially a horse-drawn wagon with a large tank on top and some sort of handpowered pump hooked up to thick hoses. They usually arranged matters so as to do a number of houses on the same block on the same day, as it was anything but odorless. The outhouses were not replaced by city sewers until well into the 1920s.
*** Post scriptum. The folks at the big word book by the Isis will be glad to hear that I was wrong about what the device was called. My wife tells me her recollection of her father's story is that it was the OEO, Odorless Excavation Operation, and the kids would run around chanting, "Oh-ee-oh-ee" when it came around.
In Zild (and I'm sure that either MaxQ or I have mentioned it before) we get round the whole problem of what to call our holiday homes by using not one, but TWO completely different words for them.
In the North Island, holiday homes of all descriptions, from driftwood-and-corrugated-iron shacks to $2 million architecturally-ruined and aesthetically-challenged multiplexes are called baches.
In the South Island, the self-same holiday homes of all genera are called cribs.
If you talk about a bach or a crib, anyone in New Zealand will understand that you mean a holiday home, although they will not necessarily have any idea about its quality. There are entire books and whole TV documentaries dedicated to the humble and not-so-humble crib/bach. A cottage industry, really ...
In the South Island, the self-same holiday homes of all genera are called cribs.
So *that's* where the ebonics word came from. (But in South Central LA, where it's used, one's crib is his home, not his vacation villa).
And how do you pronounce bach(e)? Like batch? Has it anything to do with bachelor/ette? Perhaps because it is where one flees when he suddenly finds himself single again?
BobY, a honeydipper?? Ohmigawd, I'd say I'm rolling, but I'm afraid I'd be rolling IN something... The OEO, huh? Um, were the songwriters for The Wizard of Oz from that area outside Baltimore, by any chance?
I never claimed that "crib" and "bach" were words specifically made up in Zild. They've just been suborned to colloquial usage. The AHD has this to say about crib: (Haven't I heard that expression somewhere else?)
crib (krib) n. 1. A bed with high sides for a young child or baby.
2. A small building, usually with slatted sides, for storing corn. (a) A rack or trough for fodder; a manger. (b) A stall for cattle. (c) A small crude cottage or room. Slang. One's home.
So, Keven, the usage you have heard was perfectly correct.
For bach, however, there appears to be no dictionary entry which equates to "house" or "small house". Maybe it's an original usage? Perhaps tsuwm, with his access to more authorative dictionaries, can find one more closely related to house.
======================================================== Back to summer homes--the name for them in Russia is on the tip of my tongue...can anyone help me out?
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