On my blog, I mentioned that in British homes the "front room" is the one at the back. To elaborate, we live in the "living room" which is usually the one facing the street and keep "the front room", the one facing the garden (that's the yard to you guys) for best.
In the pub yesterday, my friend John said that he had never heard such a thing and that I am the only person that he has come across suggesting it.
Given that it struck me as so commonplace that I didn't think twice about writing it, this was completely a odds with my experience.

I don't know if this is an age thing, a regional thing or a class thing, or connected with the specific 1950s design of semi-detached houses, or what it is, but it is a fact that if you walk around the area where I live you will see that everyone lives in the room that faces the road and that the room at the back, facing the garden, is kept for "best".

How do the other British users of this board understand the term "front room".

I'm with John. The 'front room', the one that was kept for show, was the one facing the street in my neighbourhood. The family room was towards the back.

I think this tradition of keeping a room for 'best', using it only on Sundays and when the vicar calls, has pretty well died out in most households nowadays, My parents didn't follow it, although those of some of my friends did. I know no-one of my own generation or younger keeping up the tradition. That's probably why you saw so many families in their front rooms.

When I was dating my wife over forty years ago, her family kept their "front parlor" completely strerile and only used it on special occasions.

This room faced the street and had the front entrance door, which was NEVER used. All the furniture in the room - couch, chairs, end tables -- had transparent plastic covers to keep the soft fabrics looking new.

When my wife and I became engaged, it was considered an occasion to use the parlor and everyone gathered there. However, the plastic remained on the couch and chairs and everyone's comfort was assured by the placement of what I assume were large beach towels on the plastic.

At the time this arrangement was fairly common among my in-law's relatives and friends but it has totally died out in this generation.

When I was a lad growing up in the '60s and early '70s of the previous century, I still had a few friends whose parents or grandparents did the plastic covers on the furniture in the living-room, that is the room upon which the front door opened. They usual gathered in the kitchen or the family room (which oftentimes was a remodeled or finished basement. I knew nobody who called the living-room the older term, i.e., the parlor, which I felt at the time was so antiquated a word that it must've died out in the late 19th century or early 20th. Starting in the '60s, many of the houses in California started being built with huge living-rooms that faced and opened up a combination kitchen / dinning-room, and if the house was two story as many were, the living-room had a tall ceiling that exposed part of the second story which would be a sort of open hall or landing in front of the bedrooms. Never heard of a front-room as something other than a room in the front of the house, as opposed to a back-room which sounds more like a private room in the back of a saloon or bar. ("See what the boys in the back-room will have.")

We used to call the rooms "dining room" and "sitting room". The dining room was the one you lived in; the sitting room was for best.

I suspect one reason why rooms were thus divided was that it was expensive and labour consuming to heat several rooms, each one needing a separate fire - no central heating for the average family in those days. So families tended to live in one main room and the kitchen.

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When I was a lad growing up

I love the way you use UK vernacular in your writing.

My mother's family was from England, and after we'd have dinner she would pretentiously say (kiddingly of course), let's retire to the drawing room. I see from Wikipedia that parlor in the U.S. was the equivalent, and that later became the living room. Many homes in the U.S. have a living room, which isn't used that much, while the family room is used a lot more; that's precisely the case in our home. We also have a dining room that is mostly used for company or big occasions, while we tend to eat in our breakfast room (next to our kitchen) or in the summer our porch. Richard, you didn't eat in the dining room?

I've noticed that US real estate sales types have taken to calling the living room/front room/parlour - whatever, a "great room." Whoop- de-doo. And where do they get off calling a room with nothing in it but a WC a "half-bath?" I have NEVER intentionally taken half a bath in the potty!

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Richard, you didn't eat in the dining room?

Certainly. And we lived there as well. We only had three downstairs rooms, including the kitchen.

The posh room was often walled the drawing room - not because you took your paint and easels there but because it was a room into which one could "withdraw" - or that was ny understanding of the etymology.

The parlor in the States is what was called the drawing room in the UK. They both sound antique to mine ear along with such terms as keep, great chamber, state room, salon, pantry, or solarium. Do modern British houses still have a sun-room? Just outside the house we have veranda, porch, gazebo, detached garage, mother-in-law unit, etc.

We, too, have a drawing room: it's where we store the Crayolas.

"House Hunters" features people's search for (usually) an upgrade to their old house or apartment. I cringe as I hear the real estate agent -- who insists on being called a Realtor -- describe the various rooms: The Great Room (you can hear the capitalized letters), the Media Room (TV on the wall), The Family Room (is that where they're conceived?), and of course The Bonus Room (which is a space too small or oddly-designed to use for anything -- maybe a former closet).

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Originally posted by BobHale:
On my blog, I mentioned that in British homes the "front room" is the one at the back. To elaborate, we live in the "living room" which is usually the one facing the street and keep "the front room", the one facing the garden (that's the yard to you guys) for best.
In the pub yesterday, my friend John said that he had never heard such a thing and that I am the only person that he has come across suggesting it.
Given that it struck me as so commonplace that I didn't think twice about writing it, this was completely a odds with my experience.

I don't know if this is an age thing, a regional thing or a class thing, or connected with the specific 1950s design of semi-detached houses, or what it is, but it is a fact that if you walk around the area where I live you will see that everyone lives in the room that faces the road and that the room at the back, facing the garden, is kept for "best".

How do the other British users of this board understand the term "front room".

I was born in 1967 and have never heard anything like that. The introduction of TV must have made a huge difference! We had a room with a telly in and sometimes a dining room without a telly. Front room would be a room at the front that could also be called a lounge or a sitting room. The idea of saving a room for best sounds comical - something made up for a sitcom?

The idea of the drawing room originated with the upper classes. After dinner (in the dining room) the ladies would withdraw to the (with)drawing room, leaving the gentlemen to enjoy their port, cigars, and the telling of dirty jokes. The name was later appropriated by the lower classes and given to rooms inhabited by the family, more or less at random.

"Parlour", "lounge", "living room", "family room" "sitting room" and so on are all names for similar rooms.

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The idea of saving a room for best sounds comical - something made up for a sitcom?

It was certainly the norm when I was young. The idea that your house might not have a drawing room/parlour/lounge which was kept only for visits from the vicar and other dignitaries, was unthinkable.

And the idea that children and hoi-poloi would be allowed into the drawing room - well, that worse than unthinkable.

Of course, the modern idea is to create larger rooms by knocking all the small rooms into one - which is what has been done to my bungalow. It's not really a very good idea to my mind.

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create larger rooms by knocking all the small rooms into one

In the US that's called a "warehouse."

Many of these terms are just selling ploys used by real estate agents. But they can be downright pretentious. The "House Hunters" show I mentioned in a previous post once featured an agent pointing to the backyard of a Wisconsin (?) home and calling it a "lanai." It probably was if you could imagine it without the seven-foot snowdrift.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: <Proofreader>,

Here's part of an article on a news blog:

Britain's South West Regional Development Agency is among those trying to rub out "black mark," "black sheep" and other phrases that cast black in a negative light. Skills should be "perfected," not "mastered," according to the Learning and Skills Council. Newcastle University even has a problem with "master bedroom," The Sunday Times of London reported.

That part about eliminating "Master bedroom" seemed to fit this thread. Does anyone think that phrase and the others should be eliminated?

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The parlor in the States is what was called the drawing room in the UK. They both sound antique to mine ear along with such terms as keep, great chamber, state room, salon, pantry, or solarium. Do modern British houses still have a sun-room? Just outside the house we have veranda, porch, gazebo, detached garage, mother-in-law unit, etc.

Yes, parlors and drawing rooms sound antique to me, too. I was just saying...

Veranda sounds southern to me; we Yankees don't have them here, though we have porches, gazebos, detached (and attached) garages, as well as sun rooms and mother-in-law units.

We've never had a front room, only a living room, dining room, kitchen and family room on the first floor; bedrooms on the second. In our current house, we refer to the family room as the "Utah room." Why? Because it's not a Florida room!

Wordmatic

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That part about eliminating "Master bedroom" seemed to fit this thread. Does anyone think that phrase and the others should be eliminated?

No.

Nor any other words or phrases that some strange PC pundits seem to think might upset someone, somewhere.

Veranda sounds southern to me

English veranda(h) comes from Hindi which possibly borrowed it from Portuguese.

Considering just how far-ranging the Portugese (Or is it Portuguese?) were way back when, it's surprising to me that there's not more overt Portugese language influence. Maybe that would make a good weekly theme?

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Originally posted by Proofreader:
Here's part of an article on a news blog:

Britain's South West Regional Development Agency is among those trying to rub out "black mark," "black sheep" and other phrases that cast black in a negative light.

Teehee that's so silly. Try as they may I don't think they can make it so black is not "cast in a negative light," in fact it IS negative light.

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Originally posted by zmježd:
I knew nobody who called the living-room the older term, i.e., the parlor, which I felt at the time was so antiquated a word that it must've died out in the late 19th century or early 20th. Starting in the '60s, many of the houses in California started being built with huge living-rooms that faced and opened up a combination kitchen / dinning-room

Our family lived in brownstone Brooklyn until the early '90's. The area retains much of the antiquated lingo. One-story attached homes still have, quite literally, "front and back parlors" on the main level ("up the stoop", about 10 steps above the ground floor). These were generally high-ceilinged rooms (11-ft in ours) with floor-to-ceiling windows, flooded with light and quite grand enough to be called 'parlors' even in a 17-ft-wide 'wannabe' mansion like ours was. The original models had large kitchen (at or built into the back yard) and connecting dining room (used by the servants á la 'Upstairs Downstairs') on the ground floor. Our renovation (tyical of the '70's & '80's) converted the room at the back of the parlor-level hall into a powder room and a kitchen. The effect was quite similar to great rooms & family rooms of the era, as the kitchen opened onto the dining room (back parlor), and the dining room and living room (front parlor) were separated only slightly by huge pocket-doors left open, or just the walls which framed that opening.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bethree5,

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Here's part of an article on a news blog:

Language Log picked up this story and has some commentary on it.

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Originally posted by Proofreader:
Here's part of an article on a news blog:

Britain's South West Regional Development Agency is among those trying to rub out "black mark," "black sheep" and other phrases that cast black in a negative light. Skills should be "perfected," not "mastered," according to the Learning and Skills Council. Newcastle University even has a problem with "master bedroom," The Sunday Times of London reported.

That part about eliminating "Master bedroom" seemed to fit this thread. Does anyone think that phrase and the others should be eliminated?

Be very careful in believing such stories! Most are made up, or taken out of context. File these ones alongside winterval and Baa Baa Green Sheep.

The PC-gone-mad crowd are winning the battle at the moment which is terribly sad.