Intellectual Friend has, in a feat of unrivalled toilet negligence, still not sent us any Icelandic toilet photographs. However, he sent us a picture of a Finnish public toilet instead! Being mere lowly toilet chroniclers, we're not picky and have hardly any dignity. Therefore we forgive all and caper with joy in a most pathetic manner. Here's Intellectual Friend's intellectually valid story of a Finnish bog! Hurrah!
We are sorely tempted to insert an appalling pun here about how linguistic analysis, like chlamydia testing (see our previous post On the Eighth Day God Created Paratroopers, but He Forgot Soap), is a piece of piss, but we hesitate to offend and upset neurotic readers still in possession of their mental faculties, and so we abstain.
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The Icelandic photos did, eventually, arrive. And were they ever worth the wait! Woof! A Splendid Christmas Present: The Best Toilets in Iceland
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| Helsinki public toilet, à la Minas Morgul |
Fascinating how this toilet mania can spread freely and unhindered (writes Intellectual Friend). After spending just a few days in York with a (by association) occasionally toilet-aware Intellectual person (toilet-aware by association, not intellectual by association), Very Special Friend then travels to Finland for a laudably serious academic purpose and, despite being (heretofore) utterly toilet-unobsessed (as far as a Scandinavian can be that), yet dashes out to a park in Helsinki in the gloomy pre-dawn hours yesterday and sacrifices some of her precious pre-dawn stroll time to go out of her way and take a picture of this disturbing Minas Morgul-style toilet!
On account of having systematically been spoken to in Finnish by the Finns, Very Special Friend had assumed she must look Finnish; however, the explicit expectation displayed on this toilet that both sexes will use urinals made her wonder whether she can really stand up to Finnish women after all.
On account of having systematically been spoken to in Finnish by the Finns, Very Special Friend had assumed she must look Finnish; however, the explicit expectation displayed on this toilet that both sexes will use urinals made her wonder whether she can really stand up to Finnish women after all.
We alleviated this little dismay, though, by discussing the attendant linguistic evidence (just about distinguishable by zooming in). Interesting how the Finnish word, pisuaari, seems to come ostensibly from French, while the Swedish urinoar looks more akin to the English (though both are ultimately from French too, a subsequent OED-helped research reveals; urinal in 12th c. French meant "glass vessel or phial employed to receive urine for medical examination or inspection").
Quite apart from the concept of charging some toilet activities and not others, one can make out (after zooming) and ponder the two trilingual signs "Maksuton / Ingen avgift / Free of charge" and "Maksu / Avgift / Charge". This is of course the occasion to delight in this schoolbook example of the very productive and versatile Finno-Ugric suffixes of negation, in this case -ton.
We are sorely tempted to insert an appalling pun here about how linguistic analysis, like chlamydia testing (see our previous post On the Eighth Day God Created Paratroopers, but He Forgot Soap), is a piece of piss, but we hesitate to offend and upset neurotic readers still in possession of their mental faculties, and so we abstain.
Related Reading
More Negligence by Intellectual Friend: Bulgaria: An Intellectual Treat
The Icelandic photos did, eventually, arrive. And were they ever worth the wait! Woof! A Splendid Christmas Present: The Best Toilets in Iceland
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