This week, we talk about the difference between "sofa," "couch," and all the other words for that piece of furniture. Plus, to get in the mood for Halloween, we explore four idioms about skeletons. SPONSOR http://topcashback.com/grammar FOLLOW GRAMMAR GIRL Twitter: http://twitter.com/grammargirl Facebook: http://facebook.com/grammargirl Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/realgrammargirl Instagram: http://instagram.com/thegrammargirl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/grammar-girl GRAMMAR POP Optimized for iPad: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/grammar-pop-hd/id666851934?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 For all iOS Devices: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/grammar-pop-hd/id666851934?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 GRAMMAR GIRL BOOKS http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl-book-page THE GRAMMAR DAILY 2018 CALENDAR http://amzn.to/2f8jPDG Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network. Check out all the Quick and Dirty Tips shows: www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcasts
This week, we talk about the difference between "sofa," "couch," and all the other words for that piece of furniture. Plus, to get in the mood for Halloween, we explore four idioms about skeletons.
SPONSOR
http://topcashback.com/grammar
FOLLOW GRAMMAR GIRL
Twitter: http://twitter.com/grammargirl
Facebook: http://facebook.com/grammargirl
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/realgrammargirl
Instagram: http://instagram.com/thegrammargirl
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/grammar-girl
GRAMMAR POP
Optimized for iPad: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/grammar-pop-hd/id666851934?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4
For all iOS Devices: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/grammar-pop-hd/id666851934?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4
GRAMMAR GIRL BOOKS http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl-book-page
THE GRAMMAR DAILY 2018 CALENDAR http://amzn.to/2f8jPDG
Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network. Check out all the Quick and Dirty Tips shows: www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcasts
Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, and this week, I have a tidbit about “sofa,” “couch,” and other words for that piece of furniture, and a meaty middle about idioms that use the word “skeleton.”
But first, I have to share this review from SimonJBanderob in Canada at the top of the show because the coincidence was amazing. Simon used to listen while volunteering at the Bread & Puppet Theatre company in Vermont, but get this: he wrote, “Now that I’m back in Canada, I often listen to Grammar Girl while playing video games—like Civilization! Grammar Girl, when you were giving a shoutout to Civilization, I was assigning routes to your favorite units, the caravan.” That’s just amazing.
Simon also asked me to keep in mind dialects of English besides British and American. He said, “Us commonwealth folks have our own style guides and spelling that don’t necessarily cleave to British or American English.” That’s a lot tougher for me, but I will try Simon. In fact, today’s tidbit touches a bit on Canadian English. So let’s get to it!
‘Sofa’ or ‘Couch’?
By Mignon Fogarty
What you call a long, upholstered piece of living room furniture depends on where you live and when you were born.
‘Davenport’
For example, “couch” and “sofa” are currently the most popular names, but my parents called it a davenport because that name was once common in the upper Midwest, which is where my parents grew up. The name came from the A.H. Davenport Company, a manufacturer of this type of furniture in the mid-1800s and into the early 1900s, including pieces that furnished the White House. From a Google Ngram search in books, it looks as if “davenport” peaked in the United States in the mid-1940s after which its use dropped dramatically and then has been stable at a lower rate since around 1970.
Usage of ‘Couch’ and ‘Sofa’
In 2009, I posted a nonscientific online poll asking what you call a long, upholstered piece of furniture, and nearly 4,500 people replied. "Couch" was the clear winner with 71% of the responses, “sofa” was next with 27% of the responses, and all the others had fractions of a percent:
Couch 71.1%
Sofa 26.6%
Chesterfield 0.8%
Settee 0.8%
Davenport 0.6%
Divan 0.3%
Some people told me that “lounge" (which I neglected to include in the poll) is a dominant term in Australia.
Anecdotally, I’ve seen the assertion that “sofa” is proper, and “couch” is slang, but I couldn’t find any data or reference books to back that up. It may simply come from the fact that “sofa” is more popular in Britain, and “couch” is more popular in the United States, and some British people consider American terms to be less proper. Also, “couch” probably won so dramatically in my online poll because the respondents skewed American.
There may also be differences by class, at least in Britain, that didn’t show up in my poll. For example, I found a linguistics corpus study that says middle class people in Britain were more likely to use “sofa” or “couch,” whereas working class people were more likely to use “settee.”
Origin of ‘Couch’ and ‘Sofa’
Dictionaries say that "couch" is actually the older term and has been around since Middle English (as "couche") and comes from an Old French (“culche”) word meaning "to put into place,” “to lie down,” or “to put into bed.”
"Sofa" made its appearance in English at least a couple hundred years later, coming from the Arabic word "soffah" or “suffah” which originally meant “a bench.” “Sofa” came to describe the piece of furniture we think of today in the early 1700s.
In the old days, a couch may or may not have had a back or may have had a half-back (OED), and may have only had an armrest on one end or had a raised end such as a psychiatrist’s couch, but my impression is that today, “sofa” and “couch” are both regularly used to describe furniture that has both a back and arms.
Examples of ‘Chesterfield’
Some responses to the poll led me to believe that “chesterfield” is more popular in Canada than in the U.S. and may also have some traction in California, and some online searching further convinced me that “chesterfield” is more popular in Canada than in the U.S. For example, here’s a line from a book called “Melanie Bluelake’s Dream,” written in 1995 by a Saskatchewan teacher named Betty Fitzpatrick Dorion:
And here’s another example from nonfiction book called “Growing Up: Childhood in English Canada from the Great War to the Age of Television” by Neil Sutherland. In this example a woman is taking about her grandmother and says
Dictionary.com also notes that “chesterfield” is “chiefly Canadian.” Unfortunately, Google Ngram searches only let me filter by British English and American English, so I can’t track Canadian trends over time, but I did find a linguistics study that says “chesterfield” in Canada is much like “davenport” in the United States: it was a common term years ago and is still sometimes used by older people, but among younger Canadians, “couch” is the common term.
Multiple sources say the furniture gets its “chesterfield” name from the nineteenth century Earl of Chesterfield, Lord Phillip Stanhope, who may have commissioned a long seat with “deep buttoned upholstery, rolled arms, and equal back and arm height” so his noble visitors would have a comfortable place to sit.
Summary
To sum up, “couch” and “sofa” are currently by far the most popular terms in the U.S. and the U.K.. British writers appear to favor “sofa,” and American writers appear to favor “couch”; and you may occasionally hear “divan,” “settee,” “chesterfield,” and “davenport,” especially among older people.
Finally, for a bit of fun, I laughed at this argument one respondent made to prove that the correct term is “couch.” He asked, "Who ever heard of a sofa potato?”
Not only was that interesting, but I also hope it might be helpful to people participating in National Novel Writing Month, which starts November 1. If you’re writing a period piece, or a novel set in Canada or Australia, maybe now you have a better idea of how to describe your living room seating.
4+ ‘Skeleton’ Idioms: Skeleton in the Closet, Skeleton Key, and More
By Samantha Enslen
Halloween is nearly here. So today we’re going to talk about some frightening phrases and their origins.
Specifically, phrases with the word “skeleton.”
A skeleton is made up of all the bones in a body—from the femur in your upper leg, which is the biggest bone in the human body—to the stapes, the teeny tiny bone that conveys sound from your outer ear to your inner ear.
We all have a skeleton. But hopefully, not all of us have a “skeleton in the closet.”
Skeleton in the Closet
That’s because a “skeleton in the closet” refers to a dark family secret—a source of pain, shame, or tragedy. The expression evokes the image of a household that seems perfectly normal—until you start poking around and find an unpleasant surprise.
Fiction is full of such skeletons. TV’s “Downton Abbey” had a ton, from Lady Mary’s indiscretion in season one to Lady Edith’s “trip to the continent” in season four. (We won’t spoil anything, but suffice it to say that both women had a secret they were desperate to keep.)
Edgar Allen Poe’s narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” had a literal skeleton in the closet—or rather, under the floor—that he was trying to hide. And Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” featured the ultimate skeleton in the closet—a family secret kept under lock and key—until the day it escaped.
FYI, this term was first used in literature by William Thackery, in 1845, but it’s believed to have been used earlier in common talk.
Skeleton Crew
Let’s look now at “skeleton crew.” A skeleton crew refers to a team of workers that’s been pared to the bone—reduced to the minimum number of people needed to get the job done. For example, a restaurant might normally have five servers on the floor and one person bussing tables. On a quiet night, though, they might get by with a skeleton crew of just three servers, with each of them taking turns cleaning tables.
This phrase draws on one of the shades of meaning of “skeleton”: the bare outline or most necessary features of something.
Skeleton Key
This meaning is also used in the phrase “skeleton key.”
A skeleton key is a key that’s made to open many different locks. It can do this because most of the pointy “bits” on its “blade” have been filed away, leaving only one bit at the end. That bit allows you to turn the key and throw back the bolt on many different locks.
In other words, a skeleton key uses the bare minimum of metal needed to do the job.
By the way, old-fashioned skeleton keys kind of look like a skeleton. But that’s a coincidence, not the cause of the name.
Skeleton at the Feast
Here’s an interesting phrase you may have never heard: “the skeleton at the feast.” This skeleton is meant to remind us that life holds tragedy as well as pleasure—that even when we’re feeling most alive, death is always nearby.
This idea is first mentioned by Plutarch, a Greek biographer born way back in 46 CE. He wrote the “Moralia,” essays on a whole range of ethical, political, and literary topics. In one of the essays, he describes the
“… skeleton which in Egypt they are wont, with fair reason, to bring in and expose at their parties, urging the guests to remember that what it is now, they soon shall be … it does not incline the guests to drinking and enjoyment, but rather to a mutual friendliness and affection.”
Plutarch is saying that ancient Egyptians actually brought a real skeleton, or a wooden image of a corpse, to the dinner table.
A skeleton at the feast is also mentioned by Petronius, a Roman author who was one of Plutarch’s contemporaries. In his comic novel “The Satyricon,” he describes a dinner party given by Trimalchio, an immensely rich freedman—who is a former slave.
During the party, Trimalchio brings in “… a silver skeleton, put together in such a way that its joints and backbone could be pulled out and twisted in all directions.” He flings the skeleton around, so it falls into different postures. Then he recites this poem:
“O woe, woe, man is only a dot:
Hell drags us off and that is the lot;
So let us live a little space,
At least while we can feed our face.”
So, whether you take Plutarch’s advice and embrace friendship this Halloween—or take Petronius’ advice and just “feed your face” with candy—we hope you have a wonderful, safe holiday.
More ‘Skeleton’ Phrases
There are so many more “skeleton” phrases out there! Some are still in use; others, like “skeleton gig,” meaning a bare-bones carriage, are archaic. Here are just a few for you to chew on:
That segment was written by Samantha Enslen who runs Dragonfly Editorial. You can find her at dragonflyeditorial.com or on Twitter as @DragonflyEdit.
Thanks to everyone who wrote reviews and told me where they listen recently. I’m not exactly sure how to say this one, but Yearp$, is also from Canada like SimonJBanderob, and says “I listen before I sit down to write.” Mualhadi listens on daily walks on the shore of the Nile in Khartoum, Sudan—I think you’re the first person I’ve heard from who is from Sudan. Very cool. Vwm17, a French-American listener from Athens, Greece; Salempens listens in the car and at night, Jendollar listens on the Metro in Washington, D.C., and Chris listens to the podcast while taking his dog for her morning walk.
Thanks again to everyone who wrote reviews at Apple Podcasts and Amazon including Aspiring Tax Attorney, Kingrockafan, and Kryptonite. It really helps, and when I get frustrated after spending 30 minutes trying to figure out whether a couch should have a back or not, I think of all of you, the Guardians of the Grammary all over the world, and it keeps me going.
I’m Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. You can find all my old articles and podcasts at QuickAndDirtyTips.com. That’s all. Thanks for listening.
—
What follows is for reference and did not appear in the audio.
Sources for the Skeleton Idioms Segment
Ammer, Christine. Skeleton in the closet. American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, 2nd ed. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.
Brewer, E. Cobham. Skeleton at the Feast. The Reader’s Handbook of Famous Names in Fiction, Allusions, References, Proverbs, Plots, Stories, and Poems. J.B. Lippincott Company, 1910.
Dent, Susie. Skeleton. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 19th ed. Chambers Harrap, 2012.
Encyclopedia Britannica, online edition. Lock, skeleton, Gaius Petronius Arbiter, Plutarch. (subscription required, accessed October 25, 2017).
Oxford English Dictionary, online edition. Oxford University Press. Skeleton (subscription required, accessed October 25, 2017).
Petronius. The Satyricon (J.P. Sullivan, translator). Penguin, 2011
Plutarch. Delphi Complete Works of Plutarch. Delphi Classics, 2013.
Visser, Margaret. The Rituals of Dinner. Open Road Media, 2015.