In the US, which is more common? Janitorial room or Janitor's room/closet?
I think that 'janitorial room' is unnecessarily verbose, but maybe it's just common American usage and not just this author?
Word Choice – Janitorial Room vs. Janitor’s Room or Closet?
word-choice
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Best Answer
The janitor's closet is the more common collocation but either is fine.
Test 1: Corpus of Contemporary American English I ran a collocation search for "janitor's" and "janitorial." In initial results, "room" didn't appear, so it was excluded.
Results:
"Janitorial closet" - 4 results
"Janitor's closet" - 34 results
Test 2: Google NGram I ran a frequency search in the American English corpus from 1950 to 2008.
Results:
Regarding my own experience, I'm more used to seeing the space referred to as a closet due to its size and function. (It often doubles as storage space for janitorial supplies.) I've also heard it referred to as a custodian's closet. However, room also makes sense in that context.