Talk:Changing room
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I have a problem with the use of the terms "change room" and "wash room".
The problem is that these terms are confusing.
"Change room" could be a command to a hotel clerk, i.e. I'd like to change from one hotel to another.
"Wash room" could also be a command to a hotel clerk, i.e. I'd like the bedroom to be washed. The bedroom is not a washroom, but is merely a room one might like to have washed.
When there are various terms, I think we should choose the one that's clearest, i.e. use Occam's Razor to pare down to the simplest term.
Thus I fail to see the benefit of adding one byte (a blank space) between "wash" and "room" or getting rid of the "e" in changeroom and replacing it with "ing " (four bytes for one). The extra three bytes don't buy extra clarity, in fact they buy negative clarity.
This desire to Americanize everything often makes things less clear. See for example the difference between GFCI (the American term) and RCD. The American term is not only ambiguous, but also just plain wrong, because an RCD has nothing to do with ground. It just so happens that ground is one possible way electrons can try to violate Kirchoff's Current Law... Glogger 04:35, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
"Changing room" could be a statement to the effect that I am changing my room, e.g. going from one room to another room.
Hi, Glogger. I honestly don't understand why you accompany your article change with the above discussion of the terms "change room" and "wash room", when those terms had already been removed from the article in my previous version. But I'll try to respond all the same. The phrases "change room" and "wash room", (and "changing room") should be, and were at one point in the life of the article, explained and disambiguated as phrases, not as the accidental conjunction of the words "change" and "room", or of the words "wash" and "room", or the words "changing" and "room". Even as mere word conjunctions, these particular ones are rather difficult to find in real life, as your (to me) amazing examples above demonstrate. I believe you're a native English speaker. (Also an academic teacher.) Are you seriously telling me you would request a change of hotel room, or to have your bedroom washed (a curious locution in itself), by saying say "Change room!" or "Wash room!" to hotel clerks? (Accompanied by imperious pointing... ?) Please tell me you're kidding.
After this attempted explanation, I will revert your changes to the article. However, I kind of expect you to re-add the material about how "changing room" is ambiguous. (No, the phrase never is ambiguous in real life.) You did when somebody else removed it, so you obviously have great faith in it. I won't be back to revert you again, since I find it difficult to get het up enough over a page such as this to edit war over it, in fact I suspect you're pretty unique in wanting to. If you do re-revert, I'd be quite happy to either leave the page as a monument to your interest, or to have it turned into a redirect. It was originally a redirect, and I'm kind of sorry I ever changed it. (The David Storey play doesn't really need disambiguation.) Would you like it to be a redirect to Changeroom?--Bishonen 13:47, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC) P.S. I see you just edited the article yet again. What does "ambiguation" mean?--Bishonen 13:47, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
