Fascinating urinals

I saw this website years ago, but forgot about it until uberBitch posted about it this week. Urinal.net is an amazing collection of pictures and descriptions of public toilets around the world.

The word toilet came to be used in English along with other French fashions (first noted 1681), and originally referred to the whole complex of operations of hairdressing and body care that centered on a dressing table covered to the floor with cloth (toile) and lace, on which stood a dressing glass, which might also be draped in lace: the ensemble was a toilette.

Through the 18th century, everywhere in the English-speaking world, a toilet remained a lady's draped dressing-table. The word was adapted as a genteel euphemism for water-closet, perhaps following the French usage cabinet de toilette, much as powder-room may be coyly used today, and this has been linked to the introduction of public toilets, for example on railway trains, which required a plaque on the door. The original usage has became indelicate and largely replaced by dressing-table.

When referring to the room or the actual piece of equipment, the word toilet is often substituted with other euphemisms (and dysphemisms) such as bathroom, bog, can, cloakroom, commode, convenience, crapper, dump tank, dunny, facilities, gents, heads, khazi, john, lavatory, long drop, loo, necessary, place of easement, powder room, privy, restroom, shit-house, shitter, smallest room, stables, throne, washroom, water chamber and water closet (or WC).