OT: picture quiz
Adrian Bailey
http://www2.townonline.com/images/Brookline/mail10212004.jpg
Adrian
--
Vote Kerry/Edwards and save your life.
John Seeliger
news:VKded.136412$BI5....@fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
I don't know, but if you live in one, you shouldn't throw stones.
Jim Ward
> What's this?
> http://www2.townonline.com/images/Brookline/mail10212004.jpg
A TARDIS?
Tony Cooper
wrote:
>What's this?
>
>http://www2.townonline.com/images/Brookline/mail10212004.jpg
>
My guess would be a small storage or gardening shed that one might
erect in the far corner of the yard.
Mark Barratt
> What's this?
>
> http://www2.townonline.com/images/Brookline/mail10212004.jpg
The context suggests that it's going to be something ridiculous,
otherwise I'd guess that an ATM (= UKE cashpoint) is going to be
installed here.
--
Mark Barratt
Budapest
Martin Ambuhl
> What's this?
>
> http://www2.townonline.com/images/Brookline/mail10212004.jpg
It's a MailDefender, an anthrax decontamination device made by
BioDefense Corporation of Lexington, MA. Others using it include the
United Nations, FEMA, U.S. Attorney’s Office and Attorney’s General Office.
Arcadian Rises
My first guess was a public telephone booth under construction. But then I
thought, why build something that is gradually disappearing due to the
widespread of the mobile phones?
I go for one of the most utilitarian buildings: a public restroom.
Diane
while they wait for the school bus.
"Adrian Bailey" <da...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:VKded.136412$BI5....@fe2.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
don groves
Arcadian Rises at arcadi...@aol.com poured forth...
> >From: "Mark Barratt"
>
> >
> >Adrian Bailey wrote:
> >
> >> What's this?
> >>
> >> http://www2.townonline.com/images/Brookline/mail10212004.jpg
> >
> >The context suggests that it's going to be something ridiculous,
> >otherwise I'd guess that an ATM (= UKE cashpoint) is going to be
> >installed here.
> >
>
> My first guess was a public telephone booth under construction. But then I
> thought, why build something that is gradually disappearing due to the
> widespread of the mobile phones?
My first thought was like yours except that the phone had been
removed prior to demolition.
--
dg (domain=ccwebster)
R H Draney
>
>>Adrian Bailey wrote:
>>
>>> What's this?
>>>
>>> http://www2.townonline.com/images/Brookline/mail10212004.jpg
>
I'll go to the opposite extreme then, and suggest it's something that hasn't
existed heretofore: a smoker's refuge...if you must suck burning leaves, you can
step into this little box and indulge yourself without inflicting the habit on
others....r
Skitt
John O'Flaherty
Very, very public.
--
john
Nell
My first (and only) guess was glass privy.
Let it all hang out.
Mark Barratt
> Adrian Bailey wrote:
> > What's this?
> > http://www2.townonline.com/images/Brookline/mail10212004.jpg
> My first (and only) guess was glass privy.
>
> Let it all hang out.
It wouldn't be very privy, though, would it?
Unless you mean that everybody would be privy to your
activities...
--
Mark Barratt
Budapest
Sara Lorimer
And if it's in Brookline, Massachusetts, as the URL suggests, that
sounds quite possible. I _think_ smoking is legal on the street there,
but perhaps not...
--
SML
Skitt
You should trust Martin, who had it right.
http://www2.townonline.com/brookline/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=109673
Pat Durkin
"Skitt" <ski...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:2tvhkfF...@uni-berlin.de...
> Mark Barratt wrote:
> > Nell wrote:
> >> Adrian Bailey wrote:
>
> >>> What's this?
> >
> >>> http://www2.townonline.com/images/Brookline/mail10212004.jpg
> >
> >> My first (and only) guess was glass privy.
> >>
> >> Let it all hang out.
> >
> > It wouldn't be very privy, though, would it?
> > Unless you mean that everybody would be privy to your
> > activities...
>
> You should trust Martin, who had it right.
>
http://www2.townonline.com/brookline/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=109673
But the article claims that the item also defends agains HIV. Hmmm.
Skitt
> "Skitt" wrote
>> Mark Barratt wrote:
>>> Nell wrote:
>>>> Adrian Bailey wrote:
>>>>> What's this?
>>>
>>>>> http://www2.townonline.com/images/Brookline/mail10212004.jpg
>>>
>>>> My first (and only) guess was glass privy.
>>>>
>>>> Let it all hang out.
>>>
>>> It wouldn't be very privy, though, would it?
>>> Unless you mean that everybody would be privy to your
>>> activities...
>>
>> You should trust Martin, who had it right.
>>
> http://www2.townonline.com/brookline/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=109673
>
>
> But the article claims that the item also defends agains HIV. Hmmm.
Why not? It uses microwave and other types of radiation to kill things like
viruses.
Mark Barratt
> Mark Barratt wrote:
> > Nell wrote:
> >> Adrian Bailey wrote:
>
> >>> What's this?
> >
> >>> http://www2.townonline.com/images/Brookline/mail10212004.jpg
> >
> >> My first (and only) guess was glass privy.
> >>
> >> Let it all hang out.
> >
> > It wouldn't be very privy, though, would it?
> > Unless you mean that everybody would be privy to your
> > activities...
>
> You should trust Martin, who had it right.
> http://www2.townonline.com/brookline/localRegional/view.bg?artic
> leid=109673
Maybe not entirely - I followed up on Martin's post by taking a
look at the MailDefender(TM). It's described as "An efficient,
compact unit no larger than a dishwasher", and there's a picture
of it at <http://www.biodf.com/>. It doesn't look anything like a
phone booth (= UK telephone kiosk).
Assuming that the article that you cite is essentially truthful,
I'd guess that the item pictured could be more accurately
described as "a building constructed to house a MailDefender" -
synecdoche notwithstanding.
--
Mark Barratt
Budapest
Pat Durkin
but 45 minutes per n lbs of mail?>
Skitt
For n equal to, or less than 8 lbs. Lead-wrapped stuff excepted, I'd
assume. Seems adequate, but I really don't know what it would take to make
sure.
John Seeliger
Yes, "microwaves and other ultraviolet rays" because obviously the author
understands that microwaves are right there on the EM spectrum between
visible light and X-rays.
Nell
wrote:
Well, outhouse was the first *word* that came to mind but I realize
that "outhouse" simply means buildings not connected to the main
house, though my family uses it to mean the family "facility", so I
chose to use privy.
Why skirts are better than slacks. You can drape. :-)
My great-grandmother thought the modern turn of events was disgusting.
"Eating outside (barbecues) and taking a leak inside." The whole world
turned upside down.
Nell
wrote:
>Mark Barratt wrote:
>> Nell wrote:
>>> Adrian Bailey wrote:
>
>>>> What's this?
>>
>>>> http://www2.townonline.com/images/Brookline/mail10212004.jpg
>>
>>> My first (and only) guess was glass privy.
>>>
>>> Let it all hang out.
>>
>> It wouldn't be very privy, though, would it?
>> Unless you mean that everybody would be privy to your
>> activities...
>
>You should trust Martin, who had it right.
>http://www2.townonline.com/brookline/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=109673
I trust Martin but it still looks like a glass privy (outhouse).
Besides non see-through walls, all it needs is a crescent on the door.
Pat Durkin
How could enough irradiation penetrate to kill HIV, without cooking me to a
busted frankfurter consistency? When they kill viruses by irradiation, it
is a surface treatment, isn't it?
Skitt
You are not supposed to be in there where the mail is, silly!
CAUTION: Stay out of your microwave oven while it is in operation.
Michael Hamm
> I'll <snip> suggest it's something that hasn't existed heretofore: a
> this little box and indulge yourself without inflicting the habit on
> others.
Wheretofore? I've been seeing such things in airports for at least two
years, and suspect they've been around considerably longer.
Michael Hamm
AM, Math, Wash. U. St. Louis
msh...@math.wustl.edu Standard disclaimers:
http://math.wustl.edu/~msh210/ ... legal.html
Peter Moylan
>My great-grandmother thought the modern turn of events was disgusting.
>"Eating outside (barbecues) and taking a leak inside." The whole world
>turned upside down.
I'm on her side. I grew up knowing that it was important to put the
outhouse a long way from the house, for health reasons. When I went
to the big city and discovered that city people actually put toilets
inside their houses, I was disgusted.
By now I'm used to that practice, but there's one further step that's
still difficult for me. For various reasons our house has three
toilets, all indoors, but only the newest is inside a bathroom. That's
the one I can't bring myself to use. There's something very wrong with
putting a toilet in the same room as the place where you wash yourself.
--
Peter Moylan peter at ee dot newcastle dot edu dot au
http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (OS/2 and eCS information and software)
John Seeliger
news:slrncnq1n5...@EEPJM.newcastle.edu.au...
> Nell biomed:
>
>>My great-grandmother thought the modern turn of events was disgusting.
>>"Eating outside (barbecues) and taking a leak inside." The whole world
>>turned upside down.
>
> I'm on her side. I grew up knowing that it was important to put the
> outhouse a long way from the house, for health reasons. When I went
> to the big city and discovered that city people actually put toilets
> inside their houses, I was disgusted.
>
> By now I'm used to that practice, but there's one further step that's
> still difficult for me. For various reasons our house has three
> toilets, all indoors, but only the newest is inside a bathroom. That's
> the one I can't bring myself to use. There's something very wrong with
> putting a toilet in the same room as the place where you wash yourself.
Where are the other two? The kitchen and the dining room?
R H Draney
>
>On Friday, R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net> abed:
>> I'll <snip> suggest it's something that hasn't existed heretofore: a
>> smoker's refuge...if you must suck burning leaves, you can step into
>> this little box and indulge yourself without inflicting the habit on
>> others.
>
>Wheretofore? I've been seeing such things in airports for at least two
>years, and suspect they've been around considerably longer.
Yes, but this one's outdoors....r
Peter Moylan
>"Peter Moylan" <pe...@seagoon.newcastle.edu.au> wrote in message
>news:slrncnq1n5...@EEPJM.newcastle.edu.au...
>> By now I'm used to that practice, but there's one further step that's
>> still difficult for me. For various reasons our house has three
>> toilets, all indoors, but only the newest is inside a bathroom. That's
>> the one I can't bring myself to use. There's something very wrong with
>> putting a toilet in the same room as the place where you wash yourself.
>
>Where are the other two? The kitchen and the dining room?
In little rooms of their own. That's fairly standard practice in Aus.
Areff
>>> There's something very wrong with
>>> putting a toilet in the same room as the place where you wash yourself.
Do you ever use the term 'lavatory'?
--
R J Valentine
...
} the one I can't bring myself to use. There's something very wrong with
} putting a toilet in the same room as the place where you wash yourself.
Does it help any to think of it as a place where you wash yourself in the
same room as a toilet?
Does having a place to wash yourself in the same room as a towel you can
dry yourself with have anything wrong with it? I can see it as
counterproductive if I squint a little.
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@smart.net>
Peter Moylan
'Lavatory' was the standard word for the dunny when I was growing up in
a small country town. Then I went to the city and learnt to talk posh,
and from then on it was a toilet. Over time the word 'lavatory'
somehow fell in respectability to somewhere near 'shithouse'.
However, in response to your implied etymological hint: most of these
words are euphemisms anyway. Yes, you're supposed to use the lavatory
to wash your hands, and the toilet to powder your nose, and the
WC to get some water - dogs tend to take this literally - and the
bathroom to soak in the tub, and the restroom to sit down and relax,
and so on; but we all know what really goes on in those places.
Some go there to sit and think, but the rest go there to shit and stink.
Our remote ancestors probably thought that 'tree' was a dirty word.
Qp10qp
>From: pe...@seagoon.newcastle.edu.au (Peter Moylan)
>>> By now I'm used to that practice, but there's one further step that's
>>> still difficult for me. For various reasons our house has three
>>> toilets, all indoors, but only the newest is inside a bathroom. That's
>>> the one I can't bring myself to use. There's something very wrong with
>>> putting a toilet in the same room as the place where you wash yourself.
>>
>>Where are the other two? The kitchen and the dining room?
>
>In little rooms of their own. That's fairly standard practice in Aus.
I grew up in a house with an outside toilet - sitting out there in the icy
chill of winters' nights, watching the stars through the crack above the door,
I first learned to meditate - positioned beneath a lime tree at the end of a
short washing line.
Most people grow up with little or no recollections of individual visits to the
toilet, for which I pity them. I, on the other hand, remember in particular
those occasions when snow lay on the ground, or when I had to break the ice
with a coal chisel. After such an effort, I felt it important to savour the
event and linger afterwards on the seat with, in later days, an Old Holborn,
and listen to the jackdaws.
At university, with its claustrophobic, gamboge bogs, I first read Michel
Tournier's "The Erl-King", which made me prickle with nostalgia, jealousy, and
surprise. The novel concerns a soldier's regular journeys to an outdoor latrine
among the frozen snows of the north; the moving climax, when a friendly elk
pokes its head over the wall and nuzzles the smoking soldier, is unforgettable.
Nothing as beautiful as that happened to me, unfortunately, but I do remember
once finding a toad waiting for me on the toilet seat, perhaps sensing the
water beneath. After I'd finished, I left the lid up for him.
Peasemarch.
Mike Lyle
> Areff biomed:
>> Peter Moylan wrote:
>>>>> There's something very wrong with
>>>>> putting a toilet in the same room as the place where you wash
>>>>> yourself.
>>
>> Do you ever use the term 'lavatory'?
>
> 'Lavatory' was the standard word for the dunny when I was growing
up
> in a small country town. Then I went to the city and learnt to
talk
> posh, and from then on it was a toilet. Over time the word
'lavatory'
> somehow fell in respectability to somewhere near 'shithouse'.
We must have done this before, but isn't this interesting? WIWAL,
among our group "lavatory" was, as it is in Br, the refined term, and
"toilet" the vulgar one. "Dunny" was totally verboten. In both
countries, I think "toilet" is now the public standard.
But, and this is a big butt, in both countries "toilet" people _do_
think "lavatory" is coarse and "toilet" refined. It's fascinating,
but I do feel we'd be better off without these Hyacinth Bucket things
going on.
Mike.
Mike Lyle
[...]
> Nothing as beautiful as that [a nuzzling elk] happened to me,
unfortunately, but I do
> remember once finding a toad waiting for me on the toilet seat,
> perhaps sensing the water beneath. After I'd finished, I left the
lid
> up for him.
In Aus it could have been a venomous spider.
Mike.
Qp10qp
>Subject: Re: OT: picture quiz
>From: "Mike Lyle"
>It's fascinating,
>but I do feel we'd be better off without these Hyacinth Bucket things
>going on.
I thought we were poor, but at least we *had* a toilet. The last time a
Peasemarch went in a hyacinth bucket was around the time of the Napoleonic
wars.
On euphemisms, I quite rightly got into trouble with my ex-wife for calling it
"the bog", the name faithfully used, despite dissuasion from all sides,
including mine, by my daughters to this day. I feel its continuation in their
vocabulary as a constant rebuke.
My favourite euphemism for the act is Jean Genet's "posting a watchman", which
referred to the calling card he left on carpets before robbing Parisiens in the
fifties. Like you, he used a bucket in prison (I'm not suggesting that you've
been to prison, of course), though not a hyacinth bucket, as far as I know. (He
did, however, have a floral term for urination, which he called "plucking a
rose".)
Peasemarch.
R H Draney
>
>My favourite euphemism for the act is Jean Genet's "posting a watchman", which
>referred to the calling card he left on carpets before robbing Parisiens in the
>fifties. Like you, he used a bucket in prison (I'm not suggesting that you've
>been to prison, of course), though not a hyacinth bucket, as far as I know. (He
>did, however, have a floral term for urination, which he called "plucking a
>rose".)
Some use the literal sense of "lavatory" to derive other euphemisms...the story
is that a guest arrived at a party, and as he looked somewhat uncomfortable, was
asked by the hostess if he needed to "wash his hands"....
"No", saith he, "I washed my hands on the fence before I came in"....
(Round our office, one speaks of "a meeting in conference room P")....r
Sara Lorimer
> John Seeliger biomed:
> >"Peter Moylan" <pe...@seagoon.newcastle.edu.au> wrote in message
> >news:slrncnq1n5...@EEPJM.newcastle.edu.au...
>
> >> By now I'm used to that practice, but there's one further step that's
> >> still difficult for me. For various reasons our house has three
> >> toilets, all indoors, but only the newest is inside a bathroom. That's
> >> the one I can't bring myself to use. There's something very wrong with
> >> putting a toilet in the same room as the place where you wash yourself.
> >
> >Where are the other two? The kitchen and the dining room?
>
> In little rooms of their own. That's fairly standard practice in Aus.
When I was in Australia, most of the houses I went to had the toilets
outside. Well, they were inside, in their own sheds or rooms, but you
had to go through the garden to get to them. Is that standard, or did I
just have unfortunate friends?
--
SML
Peter Moylan
That's a question of place and time. When I was growing up they were
all outside. In country towns they were typically a long way from the
house. (And I didn't have slippers as a child, so a nighttime walk
through icy puddles wasn't the most pleasant of experiences.) Inner-city
houses usually had smaller blocks, so the toilet was closer to the
house, but still outside.
At some stage that all changed, and people started putting the toilet
inside. However, the outside dunny is still a feature of older
houses. In some of the inner suburbs of the big cities you'll find
that a house has one inside - as the result of renovations - and
another outside. The latter is often used as a junk shed or similar.
My own house originally had an outside toilet close to the house,
but it's the sort of house that has had bits added on over time, so
the original toilet is now a little room off the laundry. That is,
the house grew to surround the toilet.