Timeline for Sink vs Basin distinction
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
27 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 27, 2024 at 8:28 | comment | added | Kate Bunting | @KrisW - Well, there's the pudding-basin in which the classic steamed pudding is cooked - otherwise I would largely agree with you. | |
| Jun 27, 2024 at 8:14 | comment | added | KrisW | @KateBunting I should have been clearer: I was noting that adding “Washing-up” overrides the normal sense of “basin” for this case. I’d agree “bowl” is the more common name, but I have heard both. Speaking of, I note Merriam-Webster merriam-webster.com/dictionary/basin , offers “a bowl used especially in cooking” for basin, claiming that it’s British usage, which is news to me. For me “basin” always implies a thing that holds water, and usually involves washing or cleaning. | |
| Jun 26, 2024 at 7:59 | comment | added | Kate Bunting | @KrisW - I call that a washing-up bowl. | |
| Jun 25, 2024 at 14:37 | comment | added | Binary Worrier | What's the difference between a buffalo and a bison? You can't wash your hands in a buffalo . . . I'll get me coat . . . | |
| Jun 25, 2024 at 13:59 | comment | added | KrisW | It gets better: in British English a “Washing-up Basin” is a rectangular bowl that rests in the kitchen sink or beside it, whose purpose is to hold water and/or whatever you want to wash (it protects a ceramic sink from being chipped by metal cutlery). Further, these bowls are also sometimes referred to as “Kitchen basins” or just “Washing basins” (but not “wash-basins”, as those are a kind of sink!). Either of “Kitchen/Washing basin” would be ambiguous at a hardware/DIY shop (which stocks both things), but within a home, asking “where’s the washing basin?” clearly means the plastic one. | |
| Jun 25, 2024 at 11:01 | comment | added | paddotk | @Peter I find your last comment confusing. If it's plumbed in, it's gotta have a drain, right? Or else how would you get the water out? | |
| Jun 25, 2024 at 10:12 | answer | added | MikeB | timeline score: -1 | |
| Jun 24, 2024 at 14:42 | answer | added | Greybeard | timeline score: 9 | |
| Jun 24, 2024 at 13:40 | comment | added | Lambie | Laundry tub? Cleaner's sink? Laundry sink? A basement sink. | |
| Jun 24, 2024 at 4:42 | answer | added | Mark Foskey | timeline score: 11 | |
| Jun 23, 2024 at 16:32 | comment | added | Yosef Baskin | Isn't this a very thorough answer in search of a question? | |
| Jun 23, 2024 at 14:31 | comment | added | Peter | @KateBunting yes, but the name of the plumbed-in item appears to come from the traditional item. If you call something you wash your hands in a basin, the name may well remain when it is plumbed in. Likewise if you tip you liquid wastes down a sink, noting that a sink may have a container to allow more water to be tipped at once, that name is likely to remain even if the drain hole can accept a plug to allow water in it to be used first. | |
| Jun 23, 2024 at 14:03 | comment | added | Dan | In my experience (UK) 'sinks' are generally utilitarian - designed to be useful or practical rather than 'attractive'. 'Basins' are typically smaller and designed for personal hygiene. | |
| Jun 23, 2024 at 12:41 | comment | added | Kate Bunting | @Peter - Yes, of course, but we are talking about plumbed-in items here. I think the old-style basin can be left out of the equation. | |
| Jun 23, 2024 at 12:08 | comment | added | terdon | This has to be regional, somehow, @KateBunting. Or, perhaps generational? I know my American father, who was born in Philadelphia in 1938, would refer to the basins of both kitchen and bathroom as sinks, as do I who learned his English. But clearly other English dialects, including various AmE ones, seem to prefer basin for the one in the bathroom. | |
| S Jun 23, 2024 at 9:55 | history | suggested | Elements In Space | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
fixed typos
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| Jun 23, 2024 at 9:23 | comment | added | Peter | A basin does not necessarily have a drain hole. Before modern plumbing a basin and a container of water would be used for washing. A sink must have a drain hole. | |
| Jun 23, 2024 at 9:09 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jun 23, 2024 at 9:55 | |||||
| Jun 23, 2024 at 8:07 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Jun 23, 2024 at 8:03 | comment | added | Kate Bunting | In the UK, many people call the bathroom fitting a [wash]basin and the kitchen one a sink. However, some people use sink for the bathroom fitting as well. (There were some comments about this in response to a recent question.) I thought sink was the term used by plumbers, but a quick look at some plumbers' merchants' websites showed that this isn't the case. | |
| Jun 23, 2024 at 6:45 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jun 24, 2024 at 14:43 | |||||
| Jun 23, 2024 at 6:25 | history | edited | BillJ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
edited body
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| Jun 23, 2024 at 5:28 | comment | added | Mari-Lou A | A “southern Brit” posted an answer about bathrooms, has the term washbasin while this answer, which was posted by an American, to a different question, also uses the term wash basin. | |
| Jun 23, 2024 at 4:53 | comment | added | the-baby-is-you | @TinfoilHat Likewise in midwest. | |
| Jun 23, 2024 at 2:39 | answer | added | Phil Sweet | timeline score: 18 | |
| Jun 23, 2024 at 1:48 | comment | added | Tinfoil Hat | All of these are sinks in my West Coast American English. Pretty sure I've never used the term basin except for geography. | |
| Jun 23, 2024 at 0:07 | history | asked | Dale M | CC BY-SA 4.0 |