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When I went to the restroom at Heathrow Terminal 5 in London, I was stopped in my tracks by the sign "Cleaner's Sluice" on a door just outside.  I knew what a "sluice" was, in fact I knew several related meanings for sluice:

• • An artificial passage for water, fitted with a valve or gate, for example in a canal lock or a mill stream, for stopping or regulating the flow.
  • A water gate or floodgate.
  • Hence, an opening or channel through which anything flows; a source of supply.
  • The stream flowing through a floodgate.
  • (mining) A long box or trough through which water flows, used for washing auriferous earth.
  • (linguistics) An instance of wh-stranding ellipsis, or sluicing.

(Wiktionary)

None of these definitions quite seemed to match what I imagined was behind that door, so I pondered what a "Cleaner's Sluice" was while I was in the restroom.

By a stroke of great good fortune, just as I was exiting the restroom the cleaner himself exited the sluice, and I asked him if I could peek inside.  The room was about 7 ft. X 7 ft. and it had lots of towels, cleaning materials, and so forth.  At the far left end, it had a raised drain covered by a grill of metal bars, which I thought surely must be the sluice and that the cleaner must use it to rinse out his mops or dump dirty liquid down, which I pictured in my mind while in the restroom what the "sluice" of "Cleaner's Sluice" must have been.

So, pointing to the raised drain with the metal grill on top, I asked the cleaner, "Is that your 'sluice'?"  He looked puzzled and then, with a sweep of his hand across the whole of the room, he said "THIS is my sluice".

From DDC Dolphin:

A sluice room is a closed area found in hospitals, care homes and special needs schools that allows for the safe and efficient disposal of human waste. A properly planned and equipped sluice room prevents the spread of infection. A sluice room can also be called a 'dirty' or 'soiled' utility room.

(source)

The "Cleaner's Sluice" I saw at Heathrow 5 wasn't exactly that kind of sluice, but it was a related type of drain for disposing of dirty liquid, although the cleaner did not recognize it as such.  He thought it was the whole room, and so did his assistant who was with him.

Selected readings

• "Today's language knot: the stripped cleft sluice" (1/31/07)
• "Old Sinitic 'rice', with an added note on 'leopard'" (7/9/23)
• "What Is a Clyse?" (4/14/14)

December 10, 2024 @ 6:28 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Grammar, Usage

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