Is there a name for this?

[alpacinou]

At some schools, there are some things that are used for drinking water. If the school is crowded, you have to wait in line to drink.

Is there a name for these?



Entering the school, he went straight towards the line for the...,joining the students who were waiting their turn to drink.

 

[5jj]

I'd call it a drinking fountain.

 

[emsr2d2]

Or a water fountain.

 

[probus]

Usually called a drinking fountain in AmE.

 

[alpacinou]

Can I also use fountain alone?

The student stood in the line for the drinking fountain. After a few seconds, he reached it and bent to drink from the fountain.

 

[GoesStation]

You just said it was a drinking fountain, so there's no need to repeat the word. Just say they bent over and took/had a drink.

 

[alpacinou]

You just said it was a drinking fountain, so there's no need to repeat the word. Just say they bent over and took/had a drink.

Here yes. But if there is distance in a long passage, can I use "fountain" alone?

 

[GoesStation]

Here yes. But if there is distance in a long passage, can I use "fountain" alone?

It's possible. I probably wouldn't.

 

[Tarheel]

. But if there is distance in a long passage, can I use "fountain" alone?

Yes, if you have already established what it is you are referring to. (I don't understand the part before the comma.)

(Cross posted.)

P.S. I am pretty sure we would often refer to it as a fountain back in high school (a long time ago).

 

[jutfrank]

Here yes. But if there is distance in a long passage, can I use "fountain" alone?

In principle, if the context allows, yes. When I was at school, we used to refer to ours as 'the fountain'. We all knew what we were referring to, obviously.

 

[emsr2d2]

As long as you've already made it clear that it's a drinking/water fountain, yes. If you open with "Stan stood by the fountain", most of us would assume you were talking about some sort of (large) water feature in a garden or a public place.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Hm. The picture is hard to make out, but to me it looks like a pair of water coolers.

If you fill a cup to drink from, it's a water cooler. If you lean over it to drink from a stream squirting up, it's a water fountain.

 

[emsr2d2]

I admit I had only the slightest glance at the picture, saw that someone else had said "drinking fountain" and added my version of that. However, on closer inspection, I can see that those large silver machines all seem to have taps and are designed to be used to fill a cup. That's not a drinking/water fountain for me. This is what I was thinking of:



You press a button or a floor pedal and a jet of water comes upwards from the spout. You are meant to put your head over the tap and slurp the water into your mouth! It is possible to fill water bottles from them (I've had plenty of practice) but that's not what they're designed for.

 

[tedmc]

I see that the front item in the picture is a stainless steel storage cabinet for cups.

The next two items, also made of stainless steel, have two taps each which are fed by gravity from water/drink compartments above. We call those water/drink dispensers. Water from a drink fountain flows upward, operated by a built-in pump.

 

[Tarheel]

Two things. One, I must confess that I didn't originally look at the picture either. Two, no--that's not a drinking fountain. It's a water dispenser.