THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 1, 1995 TAG: 9502010035
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LARRY MADDRY
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
BATHROOM DETECTIVES: As if we didn't have enough to worry about. The 1995 Bathroom Tissue Report (conducted by Quilted Northern) says that two out of five Americans are snooping around in other people's medicine cabinets and drawers.
And the annual survey of preferences and behavior by Americans in the loo says many of the folks snooping around in our bathrooms - 25 percent - are using the host's personal items: toothbrushes, combs, and make-up.
It gets worse. Seventeen percent of those questioned in the survey have been so brazen in their use of personal items in the bathroom they've been caught in the act!
The Quilted Northern report has even more shocking information. Did you know that 58 percent of American bathrooms do not have a fuzzy lid cover on their toilet? Less than 10 percent wrap the back of the tank with a fuzzy covering. Talk about a culture in decline.
Women seem more concerned about bathroom snooping than men, the survey says.
And to foil bathroom detectives, 41 percent of women remove personal items from the bathroom before guests arrive, compared with 35 percent for men.
The report asked 1,000 adults to name the most unusual thing they had found while snooping in a medicine cabinet. Among the answers were: rat trap, WD40, an icepick, a glass eye, bagels, silverware and a can of beer.
WORD DETECTIVES: A nice note has arrived in the mail from John Peters who is with the Public Affairs Office of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command.
John gently chides me for using the phrase ``ATM machine'' in a recent column. He notes - correctly - that it's a stupid redundancy.
``ATM'' stands for automatic teller machine. Hence it was the same as saying `` automatic teller machine machine.''
Nevertheless, John writes that he enjoys the column. And to show there are no hard feelings he passes along some examples of other redundancies that ``need to die a painful and immediate death.'' The redundancies were published in a publication of the Armed Forces Information Service, he said.
Here they are:
personal belongings
new discovery
personal opinion
continue on
complete stop
paperback book
first annual
mental telepathy
today's soup du jour
end result
preheat an oven
free gift
Jewish rabbi
smile on his face
past history
filled to capacity
yellow jaundice
soaking wet
sugar diabetes
burst open
please RSVP
past credit history
core essentials
close proximity
personal friend
trusted confidante
grand-slam home run
consensus of opinion
entire gamut
hot water heater
two-way dialogue
grocery store
Maybe there are some redundancies that irritate you. If so, mail 'em in and I'll share them with readers. by CNB