I dont pretend to hold myself remotely close to her standards, but our mother was the queen of English grammar. If we were fortunate enough not to be corrected in public, we could tell by the wincing look on her face that we had eviscerated the English language in some way and she would let us know about it later. How she came by this talent, Im not sure. I know she majored in English in college and my grandparents were well spoken, well read and very proper, but growing up I dont remember anyone else being so overly critical. Because of this, in my eyes Mother became the epitome of good taste and all things proper (hairstyles excluded).
Once, I asked Mother what the difference was between a "sofa" and a "couch" and she said something along the line of "a sofa is what we have in the living room and a couch is what people who live in trailer houses have". I was young enough to think if a man said he 'slept on the couch', then he must have gone off to sleep in a trailer somewhere. It was all very confusing to my literal mind. Later I determined on my own that "couches" were the more casual of the two and vowed I would hopefully never own one. Just the word itself is unappealing, "cow ouch". Sounds too much like crotch for cryin out loud!
When Gary and I lived in Hooterville, one of our neighbors had this hideous emerald green leather behemoth that took up her entire living room, bending this way and that. Besides being a visual horror, it had flip out cupholders and storage (!!!) behind the giant back cushions! I couldn't imagine why anyone would want such a monstrosity in their living room. If you had a TV room or home theatre maybe, but even then its certainly not my cup of tea, but I guess you could keep jugs of tea in the storage bins ..... Then it dawned on me, perhaps I dont want anyone to get that comfortable in my house.
Sofahhhhh
Are we clear?
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