“Johnny on the Spot” Started as a Timely Helper, Not a Toilet

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there, this is Gloria Brett. I’m calling from Indianapolis.

Hiya, Gloria. How are you?

Hi, Gloria.

Well, I have a question. My sisters and I go on a, it’s called a sister connection every fall, and we were trying to take a group picture.

My sister was standing there saying, I’ll stand out, I’ll take your cameras, and I’ll take the picture.

And a young man came bounding over to us, and he saw what our need was, and he said, hey, I’ll take the picture. You can all be in the picture.

And I hope he’s listening because he did a great job.

The picture turned out awesome.

So he left and one of my sisters said, thanks for being Johnny on the spot.

And my younger sister looked at her and whispered, you just called him a port-a-potty.

And I’m going, excuse me?

I thought Johnny on the spot meant like he was there, he saw a need, he was ready.

Then the more I thought about it, it was like, wow, maybe she’s right.

It could be both.

It makes sense.

What came first?

Gloria, how many sisters do you have?

How many were there?

I have four sisters.

We have a sister-in-law who goes with us and a stepsister.

So we have a group.

So in the seven of you, how many of you agreed that Johnny and the Spot was a porta potty or a portable toilet?

Two.

Two?

There were two that thought, yeah, I think that’s what it is.

And the other three of us, we got in.

Then we went to a gift shop and were in there kind of whispering and talking.

No, no.

I don’t know who was over, you know, eavesdropping on our conversation.

But it had to be interesting.

Oh, this is really interesting.

I would call this a lexical collision because you’ve got two different meanings of a term.

And they’re both valid.

And so this is just a place where they run into each other and the context isn’t necessarily completely clear.

Here’s what happened to you.

This is how you get to that position where there’s some confusion.

There’s an expression called Johnny on the Spot that dates to the 1870s, and it does refer to a person who shows up at just the right time to help out.

Johnny on the Spot.

And then there’s a term John, meaning toilet or outhouse, which dates to the early 1900s.

It’s a little less common in the South, a little more common in the North and the West.

And then there’s another term, Johnny House, which means outhouse, which is far more common in the South and not so common in the North.

So you’ve got these three different terms.

And then you’ve got the people in the business of making portable toilets.

And apparently they are devious punsters because what they like to do, and this happens all over the country, they rifle through the English language, finding words that they can turn into toilet puns.

And so this Johnny on the Spot pun has been used so many times for businesses that make, sell, rent, whatever, portable toilets.

There are tons of them called Johnny on the Spot.

There might even be a chain, for all I know.

And so they took this term that already existed in English and applied it to their business.

And so this is how you get this confusion.

I was guessing that was what it was.

It’s really interesting, though, because a lot of people might think now that because they’ve only known that one particular brand of portable toilet, that that’s what they’re called.

Like in my lexicon, in my idiolect, it’s always a porta potty, which is also a brand name.

Yeah, that’s what I call them.

That’s also a brand name.

He was a young man, so he may have been thinking that, too.

I’m older, and I think I’d heard it before as a young child.

So Johnny on the spot, meaning the person who shows up at just the right moment to help out, is not that common anymore, but it does exist.

You will find it in literature and more thoughtful writing.

It’s not the kind of thing that you’re going to see in Facebook posts, usually.

But there wasn’t one John who did that, one guy named John.

No, it’s Johnny’s like the generic term for any guy.

Very interesting, yes.

So now you’ve got to go back to your sisters and explain all this.

I know.

I told them that I was going to ask you guys, and they just thought it was hilarious.

Because at the time, we were all, hey, hey, no, no, surely he didn’t think that.

He couldn’t have thought that.

You know, we’re never too old for potty jokes.

Right.

Clearly.

Thank you so much for calling.

Hey, Gloria, thanks for calling.

Really appreciate it.

Hey, this has been fun.

Thank you.

All right, take care now.

Not my answer.

Bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

You know, there’s a couple other terms for outhouses or toilets that I, the Dictionary of American Regional English, my favorite dictionary of all time, has an entry for Mrs. Jones.

Mrs. Jones.

And apparently, Mrs. Janet, Mother Jones, Mrs. Murphy, and Neighbor Jones are also all terms for an outhouse or a toilet.

Is that right?

Yeah.

That’s interesting.

And it’s part of the euphemistic tradition of not referring directly to this place where we defecate and urinate.

Well, right.

I mean, I remember if you’re talking about indoor plumbing, you can say, I’m going to go see Miss White.

Yes.

Yes.

Visit Miss White.

That’s a little more obvious to me.

Yeah.

English language is amazing, but you still have questions, right?

Well, send them an email to words@waywordradio.org or call us on the telephone 877-929-9673.