Talk:Dunny

Possible use as a verb
The word "Dunny" can also be a verb as in the expression "to do a Dunny on the nightshift"'' a sort of a hatchet job or stitch up on people who maintain aeroplanes specifically at night. The phrase became popular towards the end of the twentieth century when an aircraft engineer called Dunny, of Australian descent but living and "working" in the north east of England became a certifying engineer and promptly started abusing his new found authority by leaving jobs of even moderate difficulty to the nightshift. The free time he gained by offloading his work onto others was put to good use when a web based forum he established as a science project increased in popularity to become one of the most popular aviation maintenance web forums for people who were banned from Pprune and Airmech for swearing. Even today the site regularly attracts as many as five visitors a day seeking answers to many aviation related queries or links to dwarf porn....''

Someone inserted this at the top of the article. I didn't know what to do with it, so I moved it here. --DanielCD 13:29, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Stuff about the toy "Dunny"
Obviously, the Dunny toy argument does not belong in this article. If it belongs anywhere, it would be in another article, i.e., "Dunny -- Toy" of something like that. This material should be eliminated and/or moved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.226.207.182 (talk) 01:25, 6 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed. It was only hazily comprehensible (and looked like a juvenile fantasy), so I simply deleted it. -- Hoary 00:25, 14 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I think your deletion was a bit premature. However, I agree it doesn't belong here (and the US Slang bit could do with being broken off too).  I think the toy (and munny) could be merged into kidrobot, and will suggest that on those talk pages. FiggyBee (talk) 22:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposed merger into the article outhouse
I agree with moving this content to outhouse and placing a redirect from dunny to outhouse. EvMsmile (talk) 04:03, 21 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Agree, with the caveats (expressed elsewhere) that no substantive material is lost in the merge, and that outhouse/dunny is not elided with pit latrine. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 19:22, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Just to keep all the discussion together, I copy here what people had written on the talk page of outhouse:

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Article Dunny seems redundant, because basically Dunny is just an Australian slang term for an outhouse, or sometimes a flush toilet. Indeed the dunny article starts out being only about the word. The Dunny article then goes into the history of outhouses themselves. Any discussions about outhouses belong here. Australian outhouses are already described here anyway, so the history section of the dunny article is really redundant. Format (talk) 23:43, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree and disagree. The word "dunny" is a reference to any sort of toilet in Australia, NOT specifically an "outhouse". As a colloquialism it would've died out long ago if that was the case. The article should probably be deleted and "Dunny" added as a redirect to Toilet with a paragraph or footnote added there about the Aussie term. Any outhouse info in that article that's not already here should be merged. OzoneO (talk) 14:16, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
 * User:JoshMuirWikipedia you've now linked to two different places regarding discussing this - one to here and then the other one to the talk page of dunny. Please make them both go to the same spot. Interesting point that User:Ozoneocean raised in 2010... I live in Australia at present and have to say I've never heard the word "dunny" used (perhaps only people in rural areas use it nowadays?), be it for outhouse or for toilet. When you look at the current content of the page of dunny it mainly describes outhouses though. So I would suggest that dunny redirects to outhouse, not to toilet. EvMsmile (talk) 04:08, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree, I also live in Australia, and I have heard it quite a bit (maybe it's just Perth?). I feel like it was originally outhouse and now people associate it with toilet, but that it would still be wise to put it into outhouse due to the article's nature and original meanings. JoshMuirWikipedia (talk) 22:48, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

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 * Could you give an example of how people use it in Australia? Is it like you're at the pub with some friends and someone would say "I need to use the dunny" but it's actually a conventional in-house flush toilet? Does this speak against merging dunny to outhouse? Would we perhaps need a disambiguation page for dunny with the two entries: outhouse; toilet ? EvMsmile (talk) 10:20, 22 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Oh, I just realised we already have the disambiguation page I was talking about, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunny_(disambiguation) . So in that case, I think we can happily move the content of that page to outhouse. EvMsmile (talk) 12:32, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Current meaning of the word
Please use reliable sources. I've quoted from the Australian National Dictionary in the article: ""Orig[inally] an unsewered outside privy; now used loosely of any lavatory"". There's also the Macquarie Dictionary, and a wider OUP reference search that includes Green's Dictionary of Slang. NB "dunny" has unrelated, non-toilet meanings as well. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 08:39, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I guess this should be included here if it's not already there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunny_(disambiguation) EvMsmile (talk) 12:33, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
 * That disambiguation (dab) link is already right at the top of the article, where it should be. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 18:49, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
 * No, what I meant was that those dictionary links/sources that you had provided above should be included on the disambiguation page. EvMsmile (talk) 11:48, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Dictionary links are not normally used on dab pages, see Disambiguation. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 14:29, 24 July 2016 (UTC)
 * So where should this information go then (if we want to utilise it)?EvMsmile (talk) 11:53, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
 * What information do you mean, exactly? The etymology and usage of the toilet meaning of "dunny" is already in that article. If and when Dunny is merged into Outhouse, then one solution is to include a paragraph or section on Australia, and mention the word and the place of the dunny in Australian culture - both the longdrop in the bush, and the dunnycan in the towns. Another solution is to separate Outhouse into sections corresponding to types (pit latrine, bucket toilet, etc.) and include info pertaining to all countries, including Australia, in the relevant section. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 17:32, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, now that the merger has taken place, you could follow through with those suggestions on the page of outhouse?EvMsmile (talk) 03:04, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

material for lead
This sentence (which I think I added last month) has been deleted from the lead as "too generalised and hence meaningless":
 * Pit latrines are still common in the bush, and pail closets (outdoor bucket toilets) were in use in cities into the second half of the twentieth century.

WP:LEAD says that "The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points". That sentence was meant to summarise the article, explaining that "dunny" does not equate to a long-drop, and giving the context that municipal waste collection was important in Australia until (surprisingly) recently. I am open to any re-phrasing of this, but some summary is needed. As this article may be swallowed into outhouse, we can wait till then to see how best to craft the lead, but it certainly does need to be crafted, not left to happenstance. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 18:48, 23 July 2016 (UTC)


 * OK, I have now added something along those lines to the lead of outhouse. Please check. EvMsmile (talk) 03:03, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

The page dunny should redirect to dunny (disambiguation) not to outhouse
@ User:JoshMuirWikipedia I would suggest that that page dunny should redirect to here: dunny (disambiguation), otherwise how are people meant to find that page? For now, I have added a sentence to the page but a normal redirect would be better, I think. EvMsmile (talk) 03:06, 1 August 2016 (UTC)