Musings of an aging fan

Ditto on all counts! (Except that I'd realised it earlier, but only on account of a discussion on Elaine's journal a while ago.) The same is therefore presumably true for Pel too.

I knew you said settee as a child, of course, because of your fab 'Lord of the Dance' mondegreen :-)

I seem to recall that sofa/settee is a U/non-U distinction, but my vocab seems to be rather a mix of U and non-U terms, tending more towards 'U' though I believe that there is a fairly strong correlation between U and working-class terms historically with non-U=aspiring middle-class as the outlier (presumably the creator of the original lists didn't feel working-class to be worthy of consideration!). And anyway I am unsure how true the U/non-U distinction holds these days; I mean I am sure there are class/group/regional vocab markers but I don't know that they would be the same ones. I don't think 'sofa' can be a U marker anymore when every DFS advert uses it!

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What was the Mondegreen?

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Child!Phina was very jealous of Jesus, since unlike her he was clearly allowed not only to jump on but to dance on the settee - in fact he proclaimed himself lord of the dance settee :-)

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Please, Polly - not while I'm eating breakfast! ;-)

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PS I have slight childhood traumas about using the 'wrong' word as defined by my peer-group (also having the 'wrong' accent) since the occasion at school I asked to go to the lavatory and got laughed at by not only the children but also the teacher :-( Of course, being me, I responded by firmly sticking to 'lavatory', and similar 'wrong' vocab; I still irrationally don't like the word 'toilet' though no longer use lavatory - I always call it 'loo' to my children even when they have picked up 'toilet' from school/nursery.

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Oh yes. Wrong vocab. That brings back memories (some quite traumatic).

Edited Date: 2011-05-31 08:27 pm (UTC)

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didiusjulianus.livejournal.com

I get it from my Mum & Grandma and if it was good enough for them, it's good enough for me. (Same cannot be said for everything, however.)

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bookwormsarah.livejournal.com

I use both sofa and settee, but in slightly different ways. I say "I need a new sofa" but once I have it I shall curl up on the settee. I wonder whether settee is more personal?

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It tends to depend on the style of the furniture. I'd call a chaise a chaise, and a settle a settle (and a Chesterfield a Chesterfield). I tend to use sofa for our current two-seaters (though I understand that two-seaters are called 'loveseats' in the US), but used 'settee' for our old three-seater bench settee.

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Yeah, we (American here) called our two-seater a "love seat" when there was also a three-seater in the room to distinguish it from. Otherwise, either's just a couch.

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Whereas in the UK this is a 'loveseat' (http://julianinterior.com/2008/07/rosita-loveseat-by-taylor-llorente/).

Most British sitting rooms aren't large enough to have a three-seater and a two-seater so the question of distinguishing them doesn't arise.

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Really nice piece of furniture, but I'm not sure how conducive to, er, love it would be... :-)

My sitting room was too small for multiple couches, too, but when we added a family room we got the matching set. Plus ottoman-- is that term the same everywhere?

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The other name for loveseat is 'conversation chair' (it's most usually a piece of garden furniture rather than interior upholstery).

If, by ottoman, you mean a box with a hinged padded lid, then yes.

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But not as a generic term for an upholstered foot-rest?

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Er, no. That would be a footstool or a pouffe. I think of an ottoman as more of a bedroom piece of furniture.

OTOH note that (a)I am ancient and behind the times and (b) as more furniture is physically imported from the US the terms are beginning to come with them.

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(pardon late reply) Indeed, in the UK an Ottoman is a hinged-lid upholstered box of a size large enough to sit on, rather than footstool-sized. Agreed with the more likely to be bedroom furniture point - it would be likely to be used as a blanket chest.

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Family rooms are also not really a UK concept (I've only heard the term from American friends) again due to space constraints. I gather that on average UK houses are considerably smaller than the corresponding US houses (while being considerably more expensive :-( ) though of course this will vary depending on area, high-density cities not lending themselves to expansive housing either side of the pond.

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PS I meant to say, I do find discussion of these sorts of differences and similarities very interesting!

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Mm, me too!

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lil-shepherd.livejournal.com

I call it a sofa or a settee or a couch, depending on which word happens to come to my lips. If it is a chaise or a settle, I call it whatever it is.

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evilmissbecky.livejournal.com

Couch. Rarely sofa. Never anything else.

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I remember this one (along with "What's your favorite slang for 'drunk'?", "What do you call one of those foot-long sandwiches?", and "What's the generic term for drinks like Coke and Pepsi?") as a classic sorting question (here, answers vary by both region and date of birth). One sofa term not on your list but always on ours is "davenport."

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Surely a davenport is a desk, not a seat? (Or is that another sorting question?)

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This is the Davenport I meant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davenport_(sofa) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davenport_(sofa)) (and I didn't realize it should be capitalized till I looked it up; apparently originally a brand name). My Pennsylvanian grandmother (born 1913 or so) always used the term for her sofa.

Had never heard of the desk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davenport_desk)! :-)

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