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The note about deterring moths seems like sheer and utter nonsense. The OED has this to say about the etymology:
Properly, a locked-up chamber in which articles of dress, stores, etc. are kept, a store-room, armoury, wardrobe (occas. also the contents of this); by extension, a private room, a bed-chamber; also a privy.
Carl T 14:14, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
It seems a little odd to have a description of Bürresheim Castle (which doesn't really describe the garderobe, only that it had them) but of nowhere else - it would be better to either have a range from multiple castles, or none at all. -- 82.70.156.254 ( talk) 02:11, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
When I expanded the article, I was also not sure about Bürresheim. As Nev1 said, there is nothing unusual about Bürresheim having this kind of toilets, as it was pretty much the standard architecture of the time, and these toilets are found in medieval keeps throughout Germany and other countries. Bürresheim was probably added because its toilets are explicitly called "garderobes" in the cited book. My guess is that its mention was added as a kind of exemplary confirmation/reference to the use of "garderobe" as an euphemism for toilets, as by the time the lines were added, the article lacked sources confirming that use of the term. Since I have recently added another reference to an overview about the euphemistic and non-euphemistic uses of "garderobe", Bürresheim is not "needed" for that purpose anymore.
BeyondMyKen's arguments that a mention of Bürresheim does no harm and that examples are good have merit, too. We should however avoid making Bürresheim look like it is an exceptional case of castles outside England having garderobes, because it is not. It may rather serve as an example of a castle where these garderobes are still visible, because many castles were rebuild so often that the medieval garderobes got lost at some point. But even in this regard, Bürresheim is not exceptional, there are other castles that still have their garderobes today (e.g. this one).
I'd thus say we need not remove Bürresheim completely, but make it look less exceptional. While the term garderobe hase a different meaning outside of England, we should use Bürresheim as an example that garderobes were not a feature of English castles only. I propose to replace the Bürresheim paragraph with something like:
The second sentence can then use the reference given, and the quote or even the whole current Bürresheim paragraph could be added to within the ref tag. Is that an acceptable solution? Skäpperöd ( talk) 08:49, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
This is total WP:OR, but the etymology attributed in this article seems to be linguistically pretty shaky. "The name garderobe - which translates as guarding one's robes - is thought to come from hanging your clothes in the toilet shaft, as the ammonia from the urine would kill the fleas" cited in a BBC News article (which is apparently attributed to Lucy Worsely, curator of Historic Royal Palaces but actually appears almost verbatim on a sign at Donegal Castle). Looking around for sources, this statement seems unsupportable, as the ammonia would never build up to kill pests because the urine would evaporate, as it apparently just ran down the side of the building. Examples. Since there was no venting or trap, if the sewage was actually plumbed to a cistern, Hydrogen sulfide and Methane would have built up which possibly could have killed pests, but most likely would asphyxiate the users or explode, just like in modern plumbing. - CompliantDrone ( talk) 17:36, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Garderobe article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The note about deterring moths seems like sheer and utter nonsense. The OED has this to say about the etymology:
Properly, a locked-up chamber in which articles of dress, stores, etc. are kept, a store-room, armoury, wardrobe (occas. also the contents of this); by extension, a private room, a bed-chamber; also a privy.
Carl T 14:14, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
It seems a little odd to have a description of Bürresheim Castle (which doesn't really describe the garderobe, only that it had them) but of nowhere else - it would be better to either have a range from multiple castles, or none at all. -- 82.70.156.254 ( talk) 02:11, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
When I expanded the article, I was also not sure about Bürresheim. As Nev1 said, there is nothing unusual about Bürresheim having this kind of toilets, as it was pretty much the standard architecture of the time, and these toilets are found in medieval keeps throughout Germany and other countries. Bürresheim was probably added because its toilets are explicitly called "garderobes" in the cited book. My guess is that its mention was added as a kind of exemplary confirmation/reference to the use of "garderobe" as an euphemism for toilets, as by the time the lines were added, the article lacked sources confirming that use of the term. Since I have recently added another reference to an overview about the euphemistic and non-euphemistic uses of "garderobe", Bürresheim is not "needed" for that purpose anymore.
BeyondMyKen's arguments that a mention of Bürresheim does no harm and that examples are good have merit, too. We should however avoid making Bürresheim look like it is an exceptional case of castles outside England having garderobes, because it is not. It may rather serve as an example of a castle where these garderobes are still visible, because many castles were rebuild so often that the medieval garderobes got lost at some point. But even in this regard, Bürresheim is not exceptional, there are other castles that still have their garderobes today (e.g. this one).
I'd thus say we need not remove Bürresheim completely, but make it look less exceptional. While the term garderobe hase a different meaning outside of England, we should use Bürresheim as an example that garderobes were not a feature of English castles only. I propose to replace the Bürresheim paragraph with something like:
The second sentence can then use the reference given, and the quote or even the whole current Bürresheim paragraph could be added to within the ref tag. Is that an acceptable solution? Skäpperöd ( talk) 08:49, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
This is total WP:OR, but the etymology attributed in this article seems to be linguistically pretty shaky. "The name garderobe - which translates as guarding one's robes - is thought to come from hanging your clothes in the toilet shaft, as the ammonia from the urine would kill the fleas" cited in a BBC News article (which is apparently attributed to Lucy Worsely, curator of Historic Royal Palaces but actually appears almost verbatim on a sign at Donegal Castle). Looking around for sources, this statement seems unsupportable, as the ammonia would never build up to kill pests because the urine would evaporate, as it apparently just ran down the side of the building. Examples. Since there was no venting or trap, if the sewage was actually plumbed to a cistern, Hydrogen sulfide and Methane would have built up which possibly could have killed pests, but most likely would asphyxiate the users or explode, just like in modern plumbing. - CompliantDrone ( talk) 17:36, 8 February 2012 (UTC)