Re: asking for the bathroom

In a message dated 5/30/01 9:44:26 AM, scaves@FRONTIERNET.NET writes:

>"Wade, Guy" wrote:
>>
>> I will just have to be a bystander for this.  It sounds fascinating,
>but at
>> this time I can't even ask the way to the bathroom in my lang!
>
>LOL!  Let's see, Teonaht:  Kwa'r perva li ... bav memwot?
>
>I just asked for the water room.  I can't believe that I have no word
>for
>toilet in Teonaht.  And then all the politeness conventions.  You can't
>just baldly say "where's the shit stool?"  There have to be
>circumlocutions,
>idioms, metaphors.  Any suggestions or conlang examples?
>
>;-)
I think in Eloshtan one would say "Inlem, zufogva hura glic?" which is
something like "I wonder, bathroom where at-is?" (c is pronounced /s/ BTW).
Zufogva is just a shortened form of kuzufogva, which is slightly more formal
and literally means "place of urinator." (Whether you do other things in the
bathroom instead of urinating, it's still called the same thing.) There's
nothing impolite about using a word derived from the word for "urine," the
only impolite thing would be if you asked bluntly without saying "I
wonder...."

Josh Roth
members.aol.com/fuscian/eloshtan.html