Community Chat

[faeriemoon]

I say ""shots"" too.

[qualitygal]

yup, davenport.

[qualitygal]

On 7/21/2014 J Town Girl said:

Apparently it was also a Pennsylvania term because my parents always called the sofa a davenport. I also remember my mother always called her handbag her pocketbook.

Boy those old fashioned names really do bring back good memories.

oh, mercy, pass the liniment (see bold above).

[MickD]

Davenport made by the same. In the 80's my mom got with it and called it a couch.

[Topaz Gem]

On 7/22/2014 faeriemoon said:

On 7/22/2014 Topaz Gem said:

Just thought of another one... My parents always called their porch a breezeway.

Back before malls were in existence and everyone shopped downtown, my mother and others in her generation would say "I'm going overstreet", which meant that she was going to the neighboring city's downtown shopping area.

We referred to a breezeway as a specific kind of porch. It ran from the front to the back of the house so that the breeze came in one way and out the other. People enjoyed sitting in their breezeways in the evening since no one had air conditioning.

That's the only kind of porch we ever had, so that definition makes perfect sense.

[hckynut]

My family has used all the names you mention and a few others.

[jubilant]

On 7/22/2014 hckynut said:

My family has used all the names you mention and a few others.

So did mine. Another one I remember is icebox.

[mima]

On 7/21/2014 Marienkaefer2 said:

I've heard of the word davenport, but never used it.

We say sofa, but my grandmother used to say divan. (pronounced dee-VON)

I pronounce divan as di-VAN (with a short "i"). But most of the time it is a couch.

[JustJules]

My mom was English and in the formal living room it was a divan... which we rarely used. In the family room with the tv and where we lounged around, it was a sofa or a couch. All the same thing really.

[J Town Girl]

On 7/22/2014 faeriemoon said:

Does anyone remember the "cloak room" at school? I'm not that old, but my elementary school had a cloak room in the back of each classroom. It was for coats, lunches, boots and "rubbers" (which had a whole different meaning back then.)

I definitely remember the "cloak room" from back in my parochial grade school days.

Does anyone remember taking the blackboard erasers outside to clean them? In my school the nuns would choose two students and they would get to go into the school yard about 30 minutes before school ended to clean the erasers. Nobody feared a child being abducted in those days.