Dear Americans,

[blamebrampton]

On the whole, I love you. I have long loved many of your countrymen, sometimes from afar as with Frank Capra and Katherine Hepburn, and sometimes from up close as with some very lucky young people in the 1980s and '90s.

I think your land is beautiful, your governments uniformly mad, your religious leaders alternately inspiring and depressing and your jazz miraculous.

But.

I would like to impose a rule on you all. If you cannot say the word penis, you may not handle, draw, write about or otherwise involve yourself with them. Babytalk derivatives do not count. Similarly, the F-bomb and C-bomb may no longer be. "That person used an expletive I am not comfortable with" or "Fuck me! She said cunt!" are your two options.

That is all, please go about your business.

With love,
Brammers

Comments

[lackofmendacity.livejournal.com]

*raise eyebrows*

Before meeting my f-list, I used to scowl at the American ways (tire instead of tyre; analyze over analyse; color and colour; airplane rather than aeroplane... you get my drift *g*), though I've never heard of the 'F-bomb' before. *is amused*

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

And you would receive a 'cleared for knowingly ironic use' licence ...

Acclimated always stops me in my tracks, and bathroom for toilet; what do they call the room with the bath in it? At least for the spellings there are perfectly good historical reasons (and let us not speak of the OED's ize fetish ...).

[lackofmendacity.livejournal.com]

I'll, err, just hold onto that license thanks. *g*

(I have to ask - before moving here, you didn't really think Australians had bidets right? Or any of the other stereotypes shown on Simpsons? *looks pleading* :/)

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

No, but thanks to my mum I SERIOUSLY believed that every beach had sharks by the dozen. I am the only person I know who came to Australia and *stopped* going to the beacj ...

[lackofmendacity.livejournal.com]

Ummm.

But you know now that's not true, right? Really, beach outing are quite marvelous (even if the sand gets everywhere, and you're basically promised skin cancer... :/)

[daybreaq.livejournal.com]

Well, we tend to have our bath/showers and toilets in the same room in homes and hotels. Relatively newer construction has started to put a separate room with a toilet and usually a bidet *within* larger "master bathrooms." Some homes have "powder rooms" which are also called "half baths" for real estate purposes which have just a toilet and a sink which is for guests. We don't generally have the water closet system where the bathtub/shower is in a room completely separate from the toilet.

For example, my home would be listed by a real estate agent as having "2 1/2 baths." I have one relatively large room with two sinks, a shower, a large separate bathtub and a small room inside that large room with a toilet and a bidet. That's the "master bathroom." I have another smaller room with a toilet, sink and combined shower/tub all in the same room. That's the "2nd full bathroom." And I have one more room with just a toilet and a sink. That's the "powder room" or the "half bath." So really, only the the latter term is truly a misnomer.

The official term for a public toilet is "rest room" but it's true that a lot of Americans just use the word "bathroom" I think simply because that's what we first learn to call rooms that have toilets and sinks (as well as baths and showers.)

And that's probably more than you wanted to know about plumbing in the US.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Actually, that was hugely interesting! Sorry for the response delay, I spent the last week sewing constantly, and wishing I had been virtuous so that the sewing elves would appear.

Having the loo in the bathroom never seemed that hygienic, although it is common in Sydney, too. I insist that everyone put the lid down before flushing, p[artly because that is democratic across genders and partly because I used to live with a microbiologist.

The weird thing about American loos is how wide and shallow they are. I always end up drinking litres of water to stay awake after flying in and have been worried I will overfill ... and we're back to TMI ...