The Queen's English

[MaddieM]

(12-01-2014 07:04 PM)L Verge Wrote:  I have a vague recollection of learning that a score meant twenty somewhere during elementary school, but I can't say I have ever heard it used except in the Gettysburg Address.

Another term that is seldom used today (at least to my knowledge) is "parlor." I know that RogerM can tell us that the word is derived from the French for "to talk." Somewhere in the early-1900s, it seems to have been changed to "living room." I'm not even sure we call it that any more. In the 1970s, the parlor/living room seemed to be the pretty room that no one went into unless you had special company. We inherited a "rec room" instead, and that now seems to be the "family room."

Great thread. I'm intrigued to know why the US spellings for words like Parlour and Colour dropped the u's.

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(12-01-2014 07:04 PM)L Verge Wrote:  I have a vague recollection of learning that a score meant twenty somewhere during elementary school, but I can't say I have ever heard it used except in the Gettysburg Address.

Another term that is seldom used today (at least to my knowledge) is "parlor." I know that RogerM can tell us that the word is derived from the French for "to talk." Somewhere in the early-1900s, it seems to have been changed to "living room." I'm not even sure we call it that any more. In the 1970s, the parlor/living room seemed to be the pretty room that no one went into unless you had special company. We inherited a "rec room" instead, and that now seems to be the "family room."

In the UK, the parlour was also called the drawing room, rather the living room. It's a short version of withdrawing room, a room set aside specifically for entertainment rather than living in.

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Oddly, when I was little, the term 'Parlour' was deemed a big no no. Only people with delusions of grandeur named the front room most commonly used for entertaining the 'Parlour'. My mum, a stickler for etiquette, would never have called that room by that name. It was always the drawing room. These days, of course, nobody cares as most people don't have them any more.