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Those things you sit on...

What do you sit on?

  • Settee

    Votes: 1 50.0%

  • Sofa

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Some silly Americanism

    Votes: 1 50.0%
  • Total voters
    2
Nic

Nic

Strata Poster
#justforian

What do you call them?

I think I use both Settee and Sofa. I don't really know to be honest. Settee probably just about tips it.
 
#justforian

I use both. But thinking about which one I use more makes my brain hurt. There's something more soothing about "sofa" though. So i'll go with that one!
 
I used to use settee because that's what I learnt from my parents when I was a kid. I hardly use it now though, it seems like one of those words that's disappearing.

Sofa now.
 
I've never even heard of calling them settees...

I usually use couch, but occasionally sofa is used.

+1
 
Yeah, I flick between settee and sofa as well, so... I can't really vote :) Big chair.
Martyn's got it about right though.
 
Vadge, you're a goon <3

Always sofa. Settee sounds old fashioned a tiny bit French. Couch is too American and being English, I like my language to sound English.

"Sofa" sounds comfortable, warm and inviting, which is how the long lounging chair in the front room should be.
 
It depends on the item in question.

Our ones at home are really comfy, leather and have a bed that comes out - we have sofas.

My dad's are old and a bit ****ty, thus a French word fits, so - he has settees.

Martyn's was horrid, uncomfortable and small (snarf) - he had a couch.
 
The etymology of the word couch said:
The word couch appeared in English before sofa did.

At first a couch was a bed, not an elongated, padded chair.

This is because the French word that it came from meant to “lie down.” The Latin ancestor of the French word was collocare and this Latin word in turn was built on two parts that meant “to place together.”

It certainly wasn’t the intention as the word developed, but since more than one person can occupy a couch, having evolved from being placed together, the name is appropriate.

By 1450 a couch was a couch in English but a sofa was still unheard of.

The first citation for sofa came in 1625. It seems that other European countries that had been dealing with Arabic speakers had been using the word for a little longer since in Arabic a sofa wasn’t so much an article of furniture as a raised part of the floor intended to make sitting more convenient.

These built in benches must have been covered in something to make them more comfortable because not only does the first English citation for sofa talk of a rich carpet covering it, the etymology of sofa itself meant “carpet” or “mat,” running back through Arabic and Aramaic.

It was 1717 when sofa first meant “couch” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
Click to expand...

Though Setee does appear in 1716, therefore pre-dating Sofa.

As I'm English, couch is the oldest and correct word to use...

(and who put bets on my response? :p )

However... I can barely get the names of the kids right from minute to minute, let alone furniture. So I have no idea what I call it, but it will be a mix fo the three at any time completely randomly. As all are as valid as each other as non-Americanisms and describe the same thing, I shall continue to do so self-righteously :p
 
Soffa usually works for me...

Never heard of "Settee" before this topic, you really learn something new every day :)
 
Martyn said:
I used to use settee because that's what I learnt from my parents when I was a kid. I hardly use it now though, it seems like one of those words that's disappearing.

Sofa now.
Click to expand...

This.
 
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