Doh.

[aithne]

The story introduced many Americans to the job title "telephone sanitizer", and most Americans seem to think it means just that: a tradesman who comes to your house to sanitize the telephone. The term is, in fact, a characteristically British euphemism for toilet cleaner. Think about it. If you were going to have a tradesman come to your house to clean one thing, would it be the telephone?

Things I never suspected.

Comments

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Well I'm a Brit and that's never occured to me before... I assumed it was a jokey thing about someone cleaning a public telephone box..

[differedfrom.livejournal.com]

Once again I find a new reason to be pleasantly surprised by British humor in general and Dougals Adams in particular. Awesome.