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I'm after a particular slang term for 'toilet' in German but I'm not sure of the spelling of it. I think it's Scheißehaus. If this is the correct term, should it be written as one word, two words or hyphenated? Also, should the 's' in 'Scheiße' and/or 'h' in 'haus' be in upper case, or lower case?

(If 'Scheißehaus' isn't the term I'm after, any ideas on what the correct term is?)

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1  
Without the second e. Apart from that it's correct, see Duden – Em1 Aug 30 '12 at 8:29
3  
Besides, do you know about German compounds? We put words together (to one word), only the first letter of a noun is upper case (of course), and we only hyphenate if it's necessary for better readability. – Em1 Aug 30 '12 at 8:32
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Besides, the "Scheißhaus" is not neccessarily just the toilet itself, but the hole room, or, if the building contains just the toilet, the whole building. German slang would be "Kackstuhl", or "Lokus", if you'd solely wanted to refer to the toilet itself. – TheBlastOne Oct 1 '12 at 11:27
+1 solely for asking ;) – TheBlastOne Oct 1 '12 at 11:28
...but not considered polite. You would say 'die Toilette' – raoulsson Oct 6 '12 at 14:50
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2 Answers

up vote 17 down vote

It's

Scheißhaus

It's a composition of the verb

scheißen

(not the noun Scheiße) and the noun

Haus

See this or this for more details.

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I could, however, imagine a house used to contain fascies, making that one the "Scheißehaus", with the "e" because the noun "Scheiße" composed the word. That would, however, be not the toilet, but a storage building, so: yes, +1. – TheBlastOne Oct 1 '12 at 11:24
up vote 0 down vote

I am German, and I've never heard this. People will understand "Scheißhaus" - just like "Kackstuhl", but it is very unusual.

You usually say "Toilette" or "WC".

By the way, it is very common to combine "Scheiß" with something that makes you angry.

Example 1: As you want to open a window, it sticks. You can't open it and get angry. Then you could shout "Scheiß Haus!" (spoken quickly, so it sounds like "Scheißhaus")

Example 2: As you want to go to work, your car doesn't start. You might shout "Scheiß Karre!"

Example 3: As you want to store your thesis, the computer crashes. You shout "Scheiß Computer!"

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You never heard this? I heard it a lot (colloquially, of course). Maybe it's only used regionally. I'm from Bavaria, btw. – nwellnhof Feb 25 at 23:50
I'm from Bavaria, too :-) ... Well, I guess I could have heard this when people spoke about Dixi-toilets, but I'm not sure about it. – moose Feb 26 at 8:00

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