How to Lie to the Homeless, part IIA

Dear Diary,

As I told you yesterday, I went to both the Broadview and the Lake City branches of the Seattle Public Library that day.  Although it was the first day of re-opening for the Ballard branch, which I was near that day, I didn't go there.

So although I did take pictures of the water fountains, showing that despite the signs saying they're closed:

the reason the librarians would give, if asked, for why one fountain at each of those branches is wrapped up, as one has been for months at the Ballard branch (whose restrooms and fountains have been open for about a year, after all), is social distancing.  The other fountain at each branch:

is running fine.  But as I was saying, although I took pictures of the fountains at each, I didn't even bother to investigate the restrooms, settling for my own seeing that they were open.  After all, a library probably wouldn't stay open for a full day if they weren't.  What I was really after at the libraries was these:

Yep, dictionary definitions.

I believe that I presently own massive representatives of three major lexicographic traditions:  Merriam-Webster, whose publications go back to 1806, the Oxford English Dictionary (1884), and the American Heritage Dictionary (1969).  Unfortunately, since, as I told you, dear Diary, in "A Visit to Everyday Music" last month, I haven't had the chance to excavate much from my storage yet, I've had to put off for a very long time a page in you that needed dictionary references.  Finally I gave up on consulting the books I owned and settled for those I could get through the slowly re-opening Seattle Public Library.

This even though my trust in librarians has been eroded a good bit recently.  That misleading sign shown above isn't the only one they've put up.  Here's another, from "Hike 11B":

I noted at the time that this claim that University Heights offered public restrooms was false.  And later in that page concluded that this falsehood was based on a different definition of "restroom" from that I use.

This issue of the definition of "restroom" has also come up every time I mention the "Portland Loo" at Ballard Commons, which the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation bills as a restroom, a claim I consistently have doubted.

So I wanted to consult recent dictionaries - more recent than those I own, actually - to find out whether I was just being an old fogey, or whether our city government is actually trying to re-define an English word.

I consulted two physical books and three online sources.

1. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Reference Center (SPL's access), which incorporates a Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
2. A paperbound 2016 edition of The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (SPL's copies).
3.  Oxford English Dictionary (SPL's access)
4. A paperbound 2012 edition of The American Heritage Dictionary (SPL's copies).
5. The American Heritage Dictionary (SPL's access).  This is supposedly just an electronic version of 4 above, but they do differ.

So what do they say about the relatively recent term "restroom" ?

1. a room or suite of rooms providing personal facilities (as toilets)
2. a room or suite of rooms that includes sinks and toilets
3. Originally: a room (usually in a public building or workplace) set aside for rest and relaxation (now rare). In later use (U.S.): a lavatory in a public building or workplace.
4. A room with toilets and sinks for public use.
5. ProQuest, which hosts the e-book in question, repeatedly failed to find this definition.

So two out of four think a restroom has to have a sink, one arguably doesn't, and one punts.  What does the OED have to say about "lavatory" ?

1. holder
2. holder
3. Definition 5b:
   
   A room, cubicle, etc., having a toilet or toilets as well as washing facilities
   
   Definition 5c:
   
   A fixed receptacle into which a person can urinate or defecate
4. holder
5. holder
    

(Apparently Blogspot won't allow incomplete numbered lists.  Sorry, dear Diary.)

So the online Merriam-Webster doesn't require sinks at all.  The physical Merriam-Webster does.  So does the physical American Heritage.  The Oxford English offers an alternative:  if a "restroom", being a "lavatory", doesn't have a sink, it can instead be the appliance itself, in other words what most Americans would call a "toilet".

The "Portland Loo" certainly includes a toilet.  What the sign at the University branch of the Seattle Public Library was pointing to was "sanican"s.  Would the Oxford English Dictionary really countenance this meaning?

Well, "restroom" isn't the only word I looked up.  I also checked all five for "lavatory", "toilet", and "bathroom", and the three online ones for "comfort station".  Let's look at "toilet":

1. Definition 2a:
   
   bathroom
   
   Definition 2b:
   
   a fixture for defecation and urination that consists essentially of a water-flushed bowl and seat
   
2. Definition 2:
   
   bathroom
   
   Definition 3:
   
   a fixture for use in urinating and defecating; esp : one consisting essentially of a water-flushed bowl and seat
   
3. Definition 9a:
   
   A room, building, or cubicle fitted for people to urinate and defecate in, usually with facilities for hand washing
   
   Definition 9b:
   
   A fixed receptacle into which a person can urinate or defecate, typically consisting of a large bowl (with a ring-shaped liftable seat and usually a lid) connected by plumbing to a system for flushing away the waste into the sewer; a lavatory, a water closet; (also) a similar appliance where the waste is disposed of in the earth or treated with chemicals.
   
4. 1a. A disposal apparatus for defecation and urination.  b. A room or booth containing such an apparatus.
5. 1. A fixture for defecation and urination, consisting of a bowl fitted with a hinged seat and connected to a waste pipe and a flushing apparatus; a privy. 2. A room or booth containing such a fixture. 3. The act or process of dressing or grooming oneself. 4. Dress; attire; costume. 5. The cleansing of a body area as part of a surgical or medical procedure. 6. Archaic A dressing table. ety. French toilette, clothes bag, from Old French tellette, diminutive of teile, cloth
   

So the online AHD demands a flush toilet.  Both Merriam-Websters and the OED say that's the norm.  Only the physical AHD doesn't care.

I'll put the text document into which I copied all the definitions mentioned into the public Google Drive folder I maintain for park photos:

<https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cfrNdJI9NVY3ux7OoGI7B8Vg3Klq3liT?usp=sharing> 

I'll also put there the dictionary definitions I photographed at Broadview.  (I did want to go to both branches, so I picked Lake City for a book Broadview also owns, the M-W.  But Broadview's copy of AHD is hidden, so I had to go back there later, which is what I was doing before I found the running street water fountain at 85th & Greenwood.)

As my placing this stuff into the parks folder, and not the smaller libraries folder, implies, while I'm disappointed in the librarians, they aren't my main target here.  Nowhere is the attempted re-definition of "restroom" to exclude sinks more prominent, in Seattle, than in the city's materials targeted at the homeless.

In the first part of "How to Lie to the Homeless", I noted lies the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation was telling by submitting data to a map that's still online, a map meant to show restrooms available to the homeless during the pandemic.  I also noted that these lies weren't too surprising given the longstanding hostility between parks personnel and the homeless.  Not long before that, Rachel Schulkin, a communications manager for that department, told me that all the Department of Human Services did was host those data.  I'm pretty sure, though, that DHS also designed the map and wrote the legend text accompanying it.  And my main purpose here, to which all this has simply been prologue, is to explain the lies DHS's division for the homeless told last winter, and is continuing to try to tell, to the population they supposedly exist to serve.

Next page, dear Diary, coming as soon as I can write it.