Basic Trope: A euphemism for using the bathroom.
- Straight: When Alice needs to use the bathroom, she says that she needs to "empty her tank".
- Exaggerated:
- For some reason, Alice uses multiple euphemisms for going to the bathroom in the same sentence.
- The euphemism is "turning into a frog", which doesn't even sound like it has anything to do with bathrooms.
- Downplayed:
- Alice uses the common euphemism "little girl's room".
- Alice refers to the "ladies' room" even though she is in a house with no gendered bathrooms.
- Justified: Alice doesn't want to be impolite, but she doesn't want people wondering where she is.
- Inverted:
- Alice needs to throw up, and uses the euphemism "lose her dinner".
- Alice outright says she has to pee.
- Alice, for whatever reason, feels embarrassed to admit she's thirsty and says she needs to "fill her tank".
- Subverted:
- Alice says she needs to empty her tank, and Bob thinks she's referring to using the bathroom, but it turns out that she really meant some part of a machine.
- Alice asks Bob, "Where is the ladies' room?". Bob thinks she means the bathroom, but then she corrects him, saying that she wants to know where his wife's bedroom is, and the question came out a bit strangely because she doesn't speak English well.
- Double Subverted:
- But then Bob says, "Now I have to empty my tank", and he means it euphemistically.
- Alice wanted to know where his wife's room is because she wants to use her personal bathroom. The other bathroom was occupied, and she was too embarrassed to tell him she needed the bathroom.
- Parodied: "Excuse me, where is the...euphemism for bathroom?"
- Zigzagged: ???
- Averted:
- Alice just excuses herself to the bathroom or asks where it is without speaking euphemistically.
- Nobody Poops anyway.
- Enforced: "Toilet Humour is funny, but if we do it wrong, people will think we're lazy, so let's make a creative toilet joke!"
- Lampshaded: "I've honestly never heard that expression before. Do you mean you have to pee?"
- Invoked: "Don't say you have to pee! That's rude! Say you have to... I don't know... empty your tank or something!"
- Exploited:
- Defied: Alice doesn't know where the bathroom is, and she fears communicating badly if she asks euphemistically.
- Discussed: "What are some euphemisms for using the bathroom?"
- Conversed: "In that show, when she said, 'empty my tank', did she mean she had to pee?"
- Implied: Alice says that she has to go "see a man about a horse". Considering this phrase can be used for a variety of situations that can be considered embarrassing, it's not entirely clear whether she's talking about going to the bathroom or not.
- Deconstructed: Bob doesn't understand what Alice is talking about, and she's trying to ask him where the bathroom is. She ends up suffering Potty Failure in the end.
- Reconstructed: Next time, Alice asks where the "powder room" is, which Bob can understand more consistently.
- Played for Laughs: Alice says a Hurricane of Euphemisms for using the bathroom, but Bob misinterprets each one.
Back to Go to the Euphemism.
