• Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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    15 minutes ago

    It is half a bathroom

    No you don’t get to ask why a bathroom is called a bathroom. It is like questioning the origin of a hot dog.

  • Thorry84@feddit.nl
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    1 day ago

    On the other hand, if you say you are going to the bathroom, nobody expects you to take a shit in the bathtub

  • m-p{3}@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    Never heard “half bath”, and I always called those washrooms.

    • snooggums@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      It is common in the US, frequently they will be listed as 2 & 1/2 baths if they have two with tubs and one without.

      Haven’t paid enough attention to know how they list multiple 1/2 baths but pretty sure they don’t add up like regular fractions…

      I always found the term 1/2 bath weird.

      • CuteCatBeingEatenByHaitian@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        that’s some realtor math. they are known to magically inflate surface before you buy it, and shrink it back once you bought / rented it. Mathematicians can’t explain that !

      • Ledivin@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Haven’t paid enough attention to know how they list multiple 1/2 baths but pretty sure they don’t add up like regular fractions…

        They’d either list them separately or as a whole and then clarify. E.g. "two full- and two half-baths"or something like “four bathrooms - two full”

    • FlexibleToast@lemmy.world
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      24 hours ago

      It’s a way to conveniently talk about the number of bathrooms. You can say a house is “three bedroom, two and a half bath” and you convey that there are two bathrooms and one “washroom”.

      • sowitzer@lemm.ee
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        10 hours ago

        What gets confusing are these large homes, or McMansions that list 5 bedrooms and 7 and a half baths. So are they listing 3 powder rooms at 1.5 baths? I can’t afford them, so I only see it online; but that part gets weird. I have seen descriptions that then list full and partial though.

  • samus12345@lemm.ee
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    24 hours ago

    The real weirdness originates from any room with a toilet being called a bathroom despite many not having bathtubs.

    • kevincox@lemmy.ml
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      23 hours ago

      Technically if it doesn’t have a bathtub or shower it is called a powder room. But that phrase is rarely used. (Mostly because 90% of the time when we say bathroom we mean toilet.)

  • kitnaht@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Bath doesn’t refer to the tub, it refers to bathing. You can ‘sink bathe’ with a rag and running sink water.

    So a half-bath, contains 1/2 of the common furnishings for bathing.

  • tiredofsametab@fedia.io
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    23 hours ago

    Good news! Most of the world would find that extremely weird (as with calling a room with no baths a bathroom). I think it’s due to the euphemism treadmill.

  • lugal
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    23 hours ago

    And if you had half a bathtub, you could as well have no bathtub at all

  • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    If you chop a bathtub in half and place the parts in different rooms, you can have two half baths. If you bring four such parts in the same room, you’ll get a double bath. Probably still not very good for actually bathing, because a half tubs don’t hold much water.