House is where the heart is

Question

We're all familiar with USians referring to a "house" (the physical structure) as a "home," as in: "I bought a home for a million dollars."

But then there's "house" meaning "apartment." Seems to me a lot of USians say something like "Come over to my house" when they live in an apartment. Has anyone else noticed this, or am I imagining it?

And finally, what do Americans mean when they say "flat" instead of apartment? Is there a difference?

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]We're all familiar with USians referring to a "house" (the physical structure) as a "home," as in: "I bought a ... over to my house" when they live in an apartment. Has anyone else noticed this, or am I imagining it?[/nq]
I do it sometimes. I have no good explanation for why it's just something I say. I also hear it from others. "Place" is a good substitite despite its undertone of erotic etchings.
[nq:1]And finally, what do Americans mean when they say "flat" instead of apartment? Is there a difference?[/nq]
I don't use "flat" in that sense, except perhaps in response to someone who used it first.

Bob Lieblich
At his flat

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]We're all familiar with USians referring to a "house" (the ... Has anyone else noticed this, or am I imagining it?[/nq]
[nq:1]I do it sometimes. I have no good explanation for why it's just something I say. I also hear it from others.[/nq]
I wonder if it's regional. It seems like a New York-ish kind of thing now that I think about it some more or maybe there is just a greater concentration of apartment-dwellers in New York.
I also wonder if it isn't a sort of unconscious "upgrading" the notion being. you move up a notch in the property pecking order if you call your house your home and your apartment your house.
[nq:1]"Place" is a good substitite despite its undertone of erotic etchings.[/nq]
I would have said it's a good substitute because of that undertone!

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]We're all familiar with USians referring to a "house" (the physical structure) as a "home," as in: "I bought a home for a million dollars."[/nq]
IYSSS. I think that's more of a Realtor(TM) thing. I think Americans ordinarily say "I bought a house". Also, ordinarily it won't be a house for a million dollars (even, I suspect, in Orlando's golf-course-fronting properties, since Florida has long been notorious for its bargain-basement real estate prices (NTTAWWT)). OTOH, there are some such usages of "home" that seem established. Like the notion of "owning your own home" "house" sounds wrong there; but you can easily imagine that the Realtor(TM) industry came up with the expression originally. BTW, the Realtor(TM) profession is headquartered in Chicago.

Out in suburbia, I think especially west of the Appalachians, there's some effort to rename "townhouse" as "townhome", BWDTB.
[nq:1]But then there's "house" meaning "apartment." Seems to me a lot of USians say something like "Come over to my house" when they live in an apartment. Has anyone else noticed this, or am I imagining it?[/nq]
Sure, it's been completely standard since time immemorial, at least in New York where a fair number of people reside in apartments. In some contexts it's more appropriate than others.
[nq:1]And finally, what do Americans mean when they say "flat" instead of apartment? Is there a difference?[/nq]
Seems to have a special meaning in some places Out West like San Francisco, but I forget what. (Something like a unit in a Boston-style triple-decker, IIRC.) To me, "flat" is just a Hiberno-Briticism for "apartment", accurate or not, except there are a few special usages of it in my dialect: "railroad flat" (referring to a kind of apartment, usually fairly old, where the rooms are laid out railroad style, one after the other), and "cold-water flat" (historical term for a tenement dwelling that, I guess, only had cold water). That these old terms survive suggests that at one time "flat" was more commonly used for today's "apartment".

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]We're all familiar with USians referring to a "house" (the physical structure) as a "home," as in: "I bought a home for a million dollars."[/nq]
[nq:1]IYSSS. I think that's more of a Realtor(TM) thing. I think Americans ordinarily say "I bought a house".[/nq]
Hmmm. Not so sure about that myself. I hear it in regular use from non-realtors.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]I do it sometimes. I have no good explanation for why it's just something I say. I also hear it from others.[/nq]
[nq:1]I wonder if it's regional. It seems like a New York-ish kind of thing now that I think about it some more or maybe there is just a greater concentration of apartment-dwellers in New York.[/nq]
There probably is. New York is the Largest City in America, and you have all this water that ups the population density (shut yer maul, Coop!). So I don't know if it's a New York thing or not (except that it is used by many New York speakers sometimes). Liebs, however, is not a New York speaker, though his wife is reportedly from the North Side.

It's been observed here before that in Other Parts of the Country (tm) there's a tendency to avoid calling an apartment an apartment if there's the slightest excuse, like the apartment being a condominium unit (even if it's being rented from the unit owner!).
[nq:1]I also wonder if it isn't a sort of unconscious "upgrading" the notion being. you move up a notch in the property pecking order if you call your house your home and your apartment your house.[/nq]
With respect to New York usage, I'm pretty sure this isn't so, since it's often the case that apartments are higher in the property pecking order than houses proper. I think it's more that "house" is being used to mean "home", just as "home", you've observed, is used by some people to mean "house".

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]To me, "flat" is just a Hiberno-Briticism for "apartment", accurate or not, except there are a few special usages of ... cold water). That these old terms survive suggests that at one time "flat" was more commonly used for today's "apartment".[/nq]
That jogged something in my brain. I would have dismissed "flat" but you are right about "railroad flat" and "cold-water flat". Although both are receding into the past in New York, most people here would know, and use, those two constructions. It also points up that a "flat" in New York connotes a unit in a 19th century tenement built as housing for workers or the poor. Early use of the word "apartment" was exclusively for luxury buildings in New York. If you look at the history of housing in New York you will see that at the turn of the 20th century only the rich were moving from townhouses to the new "apartments". The poor were still living in "flats".

A new era in housing dawned roughly in the 1920s when worker housing was being built with gardens and courtyards to let in fresh air and light to every unit. These units were called "apartments", which was an upmarket word and has stayed with us ever since.

BTW, a "railroad flat" is also a "shotgun flat" supposedly because you could fire a shotgun from the front room straight through to the back, but I don't really believe that. I think it's because of the layout being as straight as a gun barrel.
Brian Wickham

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]BTW, a "railroad flat" is also a "shotgun flat" supposedly because you could fire a shotgun from the front room straight through to the back, but I don't really believe that. I think it's because of the layout being as straight as a gun barrel.[/nq]
Shotgun flats were preceded, of course, by shotgun houses, a common architectural style in the Southern U.S. with West African origins. American Heritage cites one Melissa O. Fryauf (who?) as saying, "Shotguns (are) so named because a shotgun fired through the front door of these long, narrow homes could pass straight through the house and out the back door without hitting any barriers."
http://www.bartleby.com/61/77/S0367700.html
But I've also seen the claim that this usage of "shotgun" is derived from "togun", a Yoruba word for "house", or from "shogun", Yoruba for "***'s house":
http://www.arts.state.al.us/actc/articles/shotgun.htm http://www.getty.edu/artsednet/resources/Biggers/Shotgun/ http://www.jayikislakfoundation.org/millennium-exhibit/andrews1.htm

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]That jogged something in my brain. I would have dismissed "flat" but you are right about "railroad flat" and "cold-water flat". Although both are receding into the past in New York, most people here would know, and use, those two constructions.[/nq]
There is also "the walk-up" as in "third floor walk-up". I'm not sure if there are restrictions on the use of "walk-up". I would think that anything above four floors would be a tenement, and under four floor might be an apartment building. I chose four floors because that's about the max climb I'd make.

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MC wrote, in part:
[nq:1]But then there's "house" meaning "apartment." Seems to me a lot of USians say something like "Come over to my house" when they live in an apartment. Has anyone else noticed this, or am I imagining it?[/nq]
I frequently call my apartment "my house." I don't own it and there are other families in the building, yet I continue.
[nq:1]And finally, what do Americans mean when they say "flat" instead of apartment? Is there a difference?[/nq]
I don't say it. But if I did I would be in San Francisco, and I would be referring to an apartment with its own entrance from the street.

SML
ess el five six zero at columbia dot edu
http://pirate-women.com

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]MC wrote, in part:[/nq]
I flat-out deny ever having lived in a flat.
There were two times when I lived in an apartment, and one when I rented a condominium. I have also rented a house on two occasions. When I had to refer to them, they were "places". No etchings, though, but that didn't discourage the girls. Yeah, the apartment living was at a time when my dearly beloved had asked me to remove myself from the conjugal premises a nice house in Santa Clara with a pool and all. It all turned out for the best in the long run.
Oh, when I was a child, my parents rented a fourth story apartment in Riga. There was no elevator, and my grandma, when she was visiting, took forever to climb the stairs up to our floor. When I was with her, I would run up and down the stairs from the ground floor to our apartment several times, just to fill the time before she reached her destination. I still remember her huffing and puffing. Grandma's own place was on the ground floor.
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/

House is where the heart is

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