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Dated 1905, copied from another Army. OK, what wa sthe British Army up to at that time? Just finished the Boer War and major reorginistaion, the other thing it could be, thinking Indian army, and that shape, an oven?

 

Well Tony the British Army were up to using these all the time. Not Indian Army although this has been ascribed to them, this particular design was attributed to a large Army/Empire of the time. Not an oven but special ovens were sometimes used in association with this installation in question. I will now answer your earlier reply.

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right!! :angry You are now pushing my military/political history.So we have 1905? Who was about with Large Army /Empire. French, humm, they'd had the *** kicked out of them by Prussia in 1871 and were still recovering. Austro Hungary? they'd had the Prussian treatment a few years earlier. Germany as it now was, still developing. So I'll take a punt on the Otterman Empire.

 

Yes Russia wa sbaout, but would thier army have the technical skill to wield a shovel at that time?

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The shrubs in the diagram make it look much bigger than it is. In fact, I guess that they were

actually branches placed into the ground for modesty?

 

Yes I agree it would be very difficult to find a pattern of tree growth like that in nature.

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Ah! A squat toilet! Said (by gastroenterologists) to be the healthiest way to defecate, the preferred modern Western posture leading to haemorrhoids and all manner of complications.

 

BTW, on a tangent, does anyone know the origin of 'khazi' or 'Kharzi'? I have heard that it's from Hindi, but no one I've met (all natives) know anything like it in Hindi, Urdu or Panjabi; another theory is that it comes from isiZuli 'imKhazi', but it doesn't ring a bell with the Zulu, Xhosa or Djebele I've asked.

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Variations on 'kaka' turn up in all Indo-European languages, usually as baby talk, though it is used by adult Boers, also in Welsh (as cac, caca, cachi) and Scots ( pronounced 'keekh'). (Oddly enough, we Welsh also share the other Afrikaans word for faeces; I think they spell it 'poep', whereas we have 'pwp'). In Hindi and Farsi, 'Khaki' means dust or dirt, and in Greek 'Kakos' just means bad. It goes right back to the Neolithic, a word with the weight of centuries. Just think of that when you next... All right; I'll just apologise and depart...

 

 

 

Sorry Clive; this is getting a bit linguistic and unsavoury - but, in my defence, what can you expect to find in a latrine?

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Variations on 'kaka' turn up in all Indo-European languages, usually as baby talk, though it is used by adult Boers, also in Welsh (as cac, caca, cachi) and Scots ( pronounced 'keekh'). (Oddly enough, we Welsh also share the other Afrikaans word for faeces; I think they spell it 'poep', whereas we have 'pwp'). In Hindi and Farsi, 'Khaki' means dust or dirt, and in Greek 'Kakos' just means bad. It goes right back to the Neolithic, a word with the weight of centuries. Just think of that when you next... All right; I'll just apologise and depart...

 

 

 

Sorry Clive; this is getting a bit linguistic and unsavoury - but, in my defence, what can you expect to find in a latrine?

 

Very funny - enjoyed that!

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BTW, on a tangent, does anyone know the origin of 'khazi' or 'Kharzi'? I have heard that it's from Hindi, but no one I've met (all natives) know anything like it in Hindi, Urdu or Panjabi; another theory is that it comes from isiZuli 'imKhazi', but it doesn't ring a bell with the Zulu, Xhosa or Djebele I've asked.

 

The OED and Collins both have it a deriving from a Cockney word generally given as 'Carsey' for little house, itself said to have derived from the Italian Casa (for house). Suspect it's one of those lost in the mists of time, though.

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Ooh! Jeriais! So good to see that posted. My wife (qualified technical translator) was as glad to see that as was I.

 

In Welsh we use 'Ty bach', which also means little house - as outdoor ones were, and brick or even stone built at that. 'Toiled' (with the /e/ pronounced) is modern. There again, 'lavatory' is a fairly recent back-formation to differentiate from 'latrine', from the Classical Latin 'latrina'; in Old Latin this was 'lavatrina' - from 'lavare', to wash.

 

 

Feeling a bit flushed here... Sorry Clive; disgraced myself again.

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No problem. The after-quiz banter usually descends into this. Uncannily the mystery objects over the years regularly feature these facilities of their various kinds. It plays on the fascination with man's ingenuity in coping with this age old problem that is especially challenging in the battlefield.

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to expand on names used for these places of short residence, the Aussies call them the 'dunny' ........ probably because when you come out, you have usually 'dun it' ....... unless you have a problem of course :-D

 

Why do we always end up on this subject .....I blame Clive, he reads too many old books .....;)

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