an important difference between Brit and US English

[cimorene]

I was just reminded of an important difference between Brit and US English.This bit from a British author bio had me a bit taken aback at first:

She writes for BBC Radio Comedy and Huffington Post UK, and once saw Dawn French coming out of a toilet

I was thinking, “Huh, weird, she must have been on a set when they were filming something, or maybe a photoshoot, but it couldn’t be a real toilet, could it? Unless just part of her had fallen in or something? Or would it be like a constructed giant toilet that she comes out of like a snake in a horror movie--”

It was about this time I remembered that Brits use “toilet” the way Americans use terms like “restroom” and “bathroom” (fun fact: in Finland a bathroom is for bathing and often does not include a toilet at all).

Comments

[vass]

(fun fact: in Finland a bathroom is for bathing and often does not include a toilet at all).

Is it not common for American houses to have one room for the bath/shower/sink, and one little room next to that for the toilet?

Over here some houses have both in the same room, both are unremarkable. If the toilet's in the same room, you'd say "I'm going to the toilet," but "I'm cleaning the bathroom" or "the apartment has one bathroom."

[cimorene]

Yes, sometimes there is a dividing door between different parts of the restroom or bathroom, but as far as I'm aware, there's no special terminology for this, except that a bathroom with no bathing facilities and just a toilet is a powder room or (real estate agent speak) "half bath". Still though, 'powder room' is rather bourgeoisie- and pretentious-sounding to my working-middle-class-background ear and neither side of my family would use it, in spite of all having these types of bathrooms and giant middle-class houses in the present day.

[vass]

Huh, that's still different. Here normally it wouldn't be a front room with an antechamber, it'd be two rooms with separate entrances.

For example, in my flat to get to the toilet, I'd walk up a short hallway which has five doors leading off it, for the living-room, two bedrooms, the bathroom, and the toilet.

I never would have guessed a toilet without a shower/bath would be a "half bath". If I saw the term, I would have assumed it meant a hip-bath or something.

I guess it's not really surprising I never picked this difference up from watching US TV or movies, or reading books. It's not the sort of thing that comes up.