The linguistic difference of the day is inspired, as they often are, by a non-linguistic difference. Better Half returned to our table at a restaurant to complain about the men's room. (For more on what else men's rooms might be called, see this post on toilets.) The complaint, formed as a rhetorical question, went something like this:
This is of course, of course, of course not to say that AmE doesn't have the word cubicle (we use it for, among other things, the partitioned areas in open-plan offices), nor that BrE doesn't have the noun stall. Each dialect just prefers a different one for the little doored privacy areas within (more BrE than AmE) lavatories. Stalls, as noted above, is more often used in BrE to refer to an area of theat{re/er} seating (or the people occupying those seats) in front of the orchestra pit (or a similar place in venues without orchestra pits).
Back to BH's non-linguistic observation--it is more common in the UK than in the US to find fully enclosed sub-rooms for toilets in public conveniences, rather than the airy screened-area-with-a-door version (though these are also found). And I do think it's more common in the US to have to turn a blind eye because you can see someone within the stall/cubicle through a crack between the door and its frame. So, the fully-enclosed sub-room version is superior in terms of privacy. But in favo(u)r of the flimsier version, at least there's better air circulation and you can always tell which ones are occupied. There's also the opportunity to ask one's neighbo(u)r for a bit of paper if you find yourself in need. The stranger-asking-for-paper scenario is one I've never experienced in England--and I'm sure that many of you will find this an advantage while others will think it's a worry.
And with this we say 'good-bye' to our (BrE) holiday/(AmE) vacation in the US, and 'hello again' to less frequent blogging!
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Why is it that the (BrE) cubicles in American (BrE) public toilets never go all the way to the floor or the ceiling and there's always a huge gap that keeps the door from ever fully being closed, meaning that one can never have true privacy?As is often the case with cross-cultural rhetorical questions, there is a hyperbole-coated grain of truth here. But first, the vocabulary. You'll have noticed that I marked BH's cubicles as BrE. I learned about this at Scrabble Club, when I had cause to mention a little sub-room in the ladies' room that contains a single toilet. I emerged from said room and informed someone that "There's no paper in the second (AmE) stall", at which point a competitor loudly exclaimed, "What, you were at the theat{re/er} in there?" And so I defensively asked "What would you call it then?" Ta-da! I give you cubicle.
This is of course, of course, of course not to say that AmE doesn't have the word cubicle (we use it for, among other things, the partitioned areas in open-plan offices), nor that BrE doesn't have the noun stall. Each dialect just prefers a different one for the little doored privacy areas within (more BrE than AmE) lavatories. Stalls, as noted above, is more often used in BrE to refer to an area of theat{re/er} seating (or the people occupying those seats) in front of the orchestra pit (or a similar place in venues without orchestra pits).
Back to BH's non-linguistic observation--it is more common in the UK than in the US to find fully enclosed sub-rooms for toilets in public conveniences, rather than the airy screened-area-with-a-door version (though these are also found). And I do think it's more common in the US to have to turn a blind eye because you can see someone within the stall/cubicle through a crack between the door and its frame. So, the fully-enclosed sub-room version is superior in terms of privacy. But in favo(u)r of the flimsier version, at least there's better air circulation and you can always tell which ones are occupied. There's also the opportunity to ask one's neighbo(u)r for a bit of paper if you find yourself in need. The stranger-asking-for-paper scenario is one I've never experienced in England--and I'm sure that many of you will find this an advantage while others will think it's a worry.
And with this we say 'good-bye' to our (BrE) holiday/(AmE) vacation in the US, and 'hello again' to less frequent blogging!