Going to visit Mrs. Murphy / Mr. Wang

Warning: potty humor ahead

Just before heading out to school this morning:

PBS*: Wǒ yào qù Wáng Cōng jiā
I want to go to Wang Cong’s house.

Me: Huh?

PBS (chortling): It means “go to the bathroom” — WC! At school we always say this.

English, of course, is full of euphemisms for seeing a man about a horse (which is one an uncle of mine is fond of). The Mrs. Murphy in the title of this post was, if not coined, at least popularized by the book / play / movie Cheaper by the Dozen. But there are two things especially fun about Wáng Cōng. One is that it’s semi-bilingual, using the first letters of the pinyin, kind of like ICBC.

The second is that the two languages involved are not Mandarin and English, but Mandarin and, maybe, Globish? The argument against English is that apparently WC is not used much in countries that have English as a native language**. Personally I can vouch for the US. Here’s a quote from BrE/AmE blogger-linguist Lynne Murphy, discussing the present-day situation in England:

I remember as a child learning that the British say water closet or W.C., but it’s not a very popular phrase today, at least not in the circles in which I travel. I’ve seen W.C. on public facilities far more often in France than in England.

In Beijing, WC is found in signs all over the place, and I think most folks think it’s standard English.

Anyone have other Mandarin examples about dropping the kids off at the pool or training Thomas on the terracotta?


*10 yr old daughter

**Readers from the rest of English-land: feel free to tell me if the generalization’s unfair…

7 responses to “Going to visit Mrs. Murphy / Mr. Wang”

  1. Kellen says:

    Any idea what cōng would be for hanzi?

    I thought the hand gesture for WC was always a bit of fun. In the middle of a conversation with some friends in a cafe, one suddenly shot her hand up in the WC sign. Being friends, at a cafe, and well that should be enough, I found it more than a little humours.

  2. Daan says:

    Haha, good one. As to how to write this in the character script: a quick Google search seems to reveal that Chinese netizens seem to use 王聰家 and 王叢家 interchangeably.

  3. You and your Google. I was on the bus using my phone at the time, hence the lack of my doing my own dirty work.

  4. Hugh Grigg says:

    I’m British, and as far as I know absolutely no-one says WC here, and I haven’t seen it on signs either.

  5. Bathrobe says:

    I think WC is a bit dated now. In fact, I learnt it off a German guy in the 1960s, and he was already in his 40s/50s. He is also the one who told me it means ‘water closet’.

    Interesting the expression ‘go to see a man about a horse’. The Mongolians say морь харах, meaning ‘go and see a/my horse’.

  6. Syz says:

    Hugh: good to confirm the absence of WC. Interesting, though, what Americans think about this issue: I’m pretty sure I remember (like Lynne) being taught that WC was British!

    Bathrobe: Thanks for the Mongolian! Very interesting. At least the euphemism makes more sense than the English if I indulge my naive vision of a Mongolian encampment with horses tied up on the outskirts. Unrelatedly: I discovered in the process that google translate has nothing for Mongolian yet :(

  7. Jieke Fanxi says:

    As an American, I first encountered WCs while living in Prague and was told then that they were Water Closets. (This would have been nine years ago)… I became quite used to seeing WCs around but it wasn’t until living in China that it became a part of my vocabulary; the hand sign, too.

    First time reader, cool blog!

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