I’ve lived in Balerno since 1991. It’s home. But Illinois, the American state where I grew up, is also home. I think of myself as a transplant – uprooted from the rich, dark farmland in the Midwest, and replanted in harder, rockier UK soil. Though I feel quite at home here, growing up in a place with different customs means that I don’t always see things in the same way as my neighbour. One of my greatest achievements since settling in this country is overcoming my embarrassment at saying toilet. Yes, you heard me right. It’s just not a word Americans use. I was taught to say bathroom, perhaps because in the US there is normally a tub in that room too. Here it is not unusual to find that people have a “little room” containing just a toilet and sink. This is called a half-bath in America – anything to avoid that embarrassing word: toilet. Some UK homes have an even smaller little room. There’s no sink … just that, ehhm, toilet, and then you have to proceed to the bathroom to wash your hands. So there is absolutely no doubt about what happens in that room, and I don’t know any Americans who would have one! In the States a lot of people say restroom – another polite way to say toilet. Once when my mother was visiting us, she came to see me at my workplace. At some point she asked my colleague Rachel where she could find the restroom. But unfortunately the staffroom was known as the restroom. It was located up a flight of stairs and Rachel, wanting to save my mother from this exertion, said, “You don’t have to go to the restroom. You can just have a seat at my desk.” This threw my poor mother into a panic as she tried desperately to make herself understood! Eventually she made things clear and was escorted to the loo. 28 | THE DELL
Sometimes it’s the person from the UK who says the wrong thing. I knew a guy from Maryland who married a girl from Glasgow. On Jan’s first trip to the US, all of Rob’s family gathered at a restaurant to meet his bride-to-be. “Where’s the toilet?” she asked Rob. Unheard, she asked again, a little louder. The table went silent and the guests became uncomfortable. Rob’s granny kicked him under the table. “Tell her she can’t say that here,” she hissed. “What’s wrong?” asked a puzzled Jan. “What’d I say?” I confess that my aversion to the t-word used to be so severe that I imagined I saw it when it wasn’t there! At this point I must mention the seemingly unrelated fact that in America the signs outside empty buildings read: “For Rent” or “To Lease”. They do not say “To Let”. So when I suddenly began seeing “TO LET” signs on every street corner, they were unfamiliar. And because there never seemed to be a big enough gap between the two words, my brain supplied the missing “I”. All around me were signs proudly proclaiming: TOILET. Had the people in my new country no shame? To be continued next issue … Notes from a small village is contributed by Suzanne Green. Suzanne is a freelance writer/editor and writes regularly for The Dell Directory. She is married to Andy and they have two adult daughters. @KonectMagazines
