New Britain herald., 1923-11-30
Is It a Drawing Room Or a Living
 Room?
Most Americans Nowadays Prefer The Less Formal Word for .
 Less Formal Room,

rO most Americans the term
 drawing room is a formidable
 = one and suggests a rather cheerless. formal and impersonal place where for six months out of the year the chairs are upholstered with hideous ticking cases, where the curtains are drawn for fear of allowing the sunshine to fade the carpet and where no one goes save on formal calls or when a. stately and pretentious party Is in progress.
 What It Meant In reality of course the word comes from withdrawing room and it was first used to designate the room whither the family and guests withdrew after dinner. Ii was especially important in old England where dinner was the great and usually only social event of the day. The diners went into the drawing room to en- joy each others conversation and society, to play games of cards. to sing, and idle away the evening hours. It was there that guests arriving after dinner were vel comed into the family group there that courting was carried or and that politics were discussed And 1t was cheerful room. usually containing the most com fortable chairs in the house. cheerful open fire and such musi- cal instruments as the house af- forded. We read in books on life in the middle states and the South shortly before the Revolution of such drawing rooms when dinner began at two or three and lasted several hours. Then the guests withdrew to the drawing room so that the servants could clear the table and get the dining room ready for supper at seven or eight.
 J4 A Matter of Names
 Nowadays. however. most Americans do not use the name for any of their rooms usually unless they have a rather large house. If they have but one or two living rooms down stairs they usually call one the living room, and the other reception room. lounge, music room, book room, or smoking room, as the case may be. The word "parlor" has gone out completely among up-to-dafs folk, just as the stif, prosaic room that bore the name has gone out of our scheme of things. Really, room as 1t was once used is a good word, but as most per sons understand it. is a bit pre- tentious and for that reason it is better not to use it save where you have large and formal house. To most of us 1t is used most fttingly when applied 10 such a room as the blue drawing room In the white house--a for nal, stately room used only for formal entertainments and not in the old sense a drawing room at all.
 IT you still have a formal parior in your house--a room dedicated to formal calls. daughters suit DTS, card parties. the minister when he comes twice a year and the hour or so after dinner when you give what you call a dinner party-don't forget that 1t should be aired and allowed sunlight as we'll as any other room in your house.
 If you have only a small house don't waste one whole room in his way. Make it into a true liv- Ing room, one used every day for the family social hours together. lt is looked upon as just little old-fashioned and bourgeois for persons in moderate circumstances 10 keep up the traditions of such } room. Daughters suitors should be received in the family circle when they call. if they call In the evening. or with the mother 1f the house if fbey call in the afternoon and mother happens to be at leisure.
 A Morning Room
 If you have an upstairs living