Loo role
Sir: A little behindhand, may I say that I enjoyed Diana Geddes' article ('With French polish', 1 April) on French man- ners and, after nearly 40 years spent south of the Channel, very largely agreed with it, though I think I would call a priest Mon- sieur le Cure or Monsieur l'Abbe (as the case might be) rather than mon pere, unless I was part of his congregation or knew him very well. Mostly, as in Britain, there are no hard and fast rules: it depends largely on the company one keeps. Diana Geddes regrets that there is no French equivalent to the 'English' word loo. The true origin of this useful word is, I believe, as follows. In the late 1920s and early 1930s it came into use among well- bred young girls who had just spent three months 'finishing' in the tumbledown château of some impecunious French aris- tocrats. The somewhat primitive plumbing in these places used to be referred to by their hosts as les lieux (short for lieux d'aisance and similar to the German anc! Scandinavian locum). The young ladies pronunciation of lieux, as one may im- agine, came out as 100. If I am right, it is yet another example °f an initially snobby word gradually gaining general currency.
John Peek
Les Broches, Chambonas, 0714 Les Vans, France
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