Flush

I’ve railed a lot against ugly words like “fulsome” and “behaviours” and “precarity” and “incentivize”, so perhaps it’s time to share some of my favourites. To my mind, the best words have a sound about them that evokes their meaning. They are onomatopoeic, or what I call pseudo-onomatopoeic. The word “crag” is an example of the latter. But recently, in a loo in North Saanich, I came upon a truly beautiful onomatopoeic word:

Flush

Say it, and feel the tongue moving around your mouth. Four distinct sounds which perfectly convey the process of flushing.

It wasn’t always like this. I remember “pulling the chain” in the old lav back in Perth where the water was stored in a concrete trough above the seat. A chain descended from a lever which released the valve at the bottom of the trough, whereupon the water gushed down a pipe into the bowl, carrying all before it. No sophistication. No meaningful swirl around the bowl. Just a torrent of water. It was effective too. No floaters reappeared. But it could be finicky, not always engaging on the first pull. I can hear it now. You always knew when someone was in the lav.

Clank, clank, clank, gush!

For it wasn’t a flush at all. More of a gush of water down into the bowl. In fact, I don’t think we ever flushed the toilet. “Don’t forget to pull the chain,” my mother would say. 

But back in North Saanich the other day, it was a flush. F-l-u-sh. The water issued forth, swirled around and around, and disappeared with something between a cough, a splutter and a sigh.

Flush. What a beautiful word!

For more about lavs see Dunnies, or consult the Table of Contents.