• Possibly linux
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    37 hours 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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    581 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}
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    331 day ago

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

    • snooggums
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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
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        312 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 !

      • Nougat
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        131 day ago

        And a room with a toilet, sink, and shower stall is a 3/4 bath.

        • dohpaz42
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          51 day ago

          I’ve never heard of this before. I have what you describe as 3/4 bath, but it was listed as a full bath in MLS.

          • Nougat
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            317 hours ago

            If you put a bedpan and a washbasin in your closet, it’s a 1/8 bath.

            • Nougat
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              112 hours ago

              A litter box and some hand sanitizer in a wheelbarrow is a 1/16 bath.

              • Nougat
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                110 hours ago

                Hole in the ground next to a pile of wet leaves? That’s a 1/32 bath.

      • Mayor Poopington
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        51 day ago

        Imagine getting a half bath but only the back half so you don’t even get a faucet

      • @Ledivin@lemmy.world
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        51 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”

    • 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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        117 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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    121 day 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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      61 day 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.

    • TomAwsm
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      17 hours ago

      Yeah, a “full” bathroom with just a shower also has zero bathtubs.

  • Rhynoplaz
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    91 day ago

    At that point you’re halfway to having a standard bathroom, so it makes sense to me.

  • tiredofsametab
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    51 day 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.

  • @TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip
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    61 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.