Posted on by Garrick van Buren

History of the term “Telephone Sanitizer”

Now, for a socially aspiring middle class family, it wasn’t quite the thing to have a truck parked in front of their house marked “Kensington W.C. Cleaning” or “Brompton Crapper Swabout,” broadcasting the messages: (a) we don’t have staff, and (b) our W.C. is dirty. So some enterprising toilet cleaner stencilled “Telephone Sanitizing” on the side of his truck. Carrying positive associations of modernity (telephones were new and expensive) and of fastidious cleanliness (even our telephones are sanitary) the discreetly marked trucks were well-received by housewives and the euphemism quickly became universal in the trade. – Trevor Blackwell