A house is not a home.

[Ron Green]

As I read the story of the latest California mudslide, in which several big residences went down the hill, I noticed the almost universal use of the word "home" to describe these properties. "House" was used only once, in the story I read, except for quotes from people who were involved.

When did "home" get hijacked from its real meaning, and become the word for a structure? I suspect the real estate industry used it as a simple euphemism to make their offerings sound more desirable, and over a couple of generations now even the newswriters are on board with this malapropism.

Does anyone say, "We're in the last home on the right" or "we're going to paint our home?"

"Home" used to be an almost spiritual word, referring to family, roots, and culture. When I was growing up in the South, people would say, "I'm going to the house," reserving the other word for its deeper meaning: "going home" often meant going to be with one's Maker, you know.

Now, of course, you'd be hard pressed to find an ad for a "house for sale." I think it's a shame that "home" has been cheapened this way.

How about you? Can you sell or buy a home? Can you truly be a homeowner? Is this a really small thing to piss and moan about?

[SmokingJacket]

1. You can thank marketers and real estate agents.

Wouldn't you pay more for a "home" than a house? Heck, it's got all the warm and fuzzy connotations built right in!

Some people really do say "home" now. "Look at all the lovely homes..." and "We live in a neighborhood of price-pointed $500,000 homes..."

[Ron Green]

6. Right, a lovely home is a place where the occupants are good to each other

and there is sanity. I've known a few lovely houses that contained wretched homes.

[Bluebear]

2. Well, home does imply that these were occupied structures...

and that real people are being affected by the slides, not just timber and tile.

As an aside, the use of 'home' that gets me is "Maw is getting old, we're going to put her in the Home"...

[bertha katzenengel]

3. On the other hand, chances are those several houses were HOME

to the occupants.

[Ron Green]

5. They probably were home to people, and they might have even been

a "second home" (another curious term, although I don't know if I've ever heard anyone say "second house.")

[RobertSeattle]

4. Didn't George Carlin has a bit on this?

Something about "home" is a state of mind. So there are no homeless people - just people with temporary housing difficulties...

[Elwood P Dowd]

9. Didn't he also say

a house is just a roof for all your "stuff". Something like that.

[Elwood P Dowd]

7. Another great song from Burt Bacharach and Hal David

:)

[sweetheart]

8. The bits we're disenfranchised from

Its as if in an unnatural life, we are trained to attach things to
ourselves. In long-ago times, women pinned gold on to their veils,
to show wealth. Now, we pin 4 bedroom houses, SUV's, jogging prams and
whatever else sort of junk it is... and you capture the core marketing
substance. It isn't home.

Maybe if i add a new bedroom, shift the house 2000 miles north and
import a community of decent people, it will be a home. Maybe if i nail
on some junk to the house exterior, everyone will respect this
disembodied reflection of my ego and grant me franchise. The "home"
has become the claim to franchise by a culture where only the homeowner
and the money'd rich have franchise... so we immitate them, down to
cheap copies of fancy paintings and cheap copies of better crap.

Yet all across the board, there is that contrived attempt to emulate
someone truly at home, beyond the reach of materialism and the grasping
and need to keep up with the folly.... and somehow, by having that
perfectly manicured lawn and fastidiously clipped hedges, one becomes
the ideal, perfect, homeowner... and then your vote counts... and all
the years before then, it didn't.

Its even better if you can attach some kids and a spouse to the home
to give it more street cred. Kids are easily attached to the
garage door with superglue, and a spouse can be simply attached to
any toilet fixture similarly. Then, when the phone rings, you can
say the kids are outside and the SO is in the can... sounding
perfectly normal, so that the thought police won't catch you wondering
if we're all just such trailer trash, that we actually expect
people to believe the crap... "home" indeed!

[Ron Green]

15. Nicely put. I've noticed that, in all the things I've seen and read

about the very grandest residences in Great Britain, they're always called "houses." As you say, being truly "at home" is a very different set of skills and activities from acquiring an edifice.

[sweetheart]

18. Home

Myself, home is a feeling, one that i've had on many parts of the
earth. I feel the whole earth as my body and my dearest love, deep
down and i am home. What a dwelling house has to do with that?

Yet, in scotland, it is called a "house" and the lie of "home" is
something else. Perhaps as people have a right to be housed in the UK,
there is not this angst for "home". The local council (city), provides
residence for all homeless persons in any place... it is the law.
Then a house is not just for the rich, but everyone, and it is not
a marketing advantage to re-brand it as "home".

But there is that ephemeral sensation of belonging, that after working
a lifetme, and accumulating all the wealth and knowledge of that, to be
less closer to having a home than when one was born; THAT is a tragedy.
Then perhaps "home" is supposed to be where mommy birthed you, and that
it represents your spiritual connection with life, death and the earth,
a place you always return to, because "family" is there.

And then we're on to the media myth of the family, and how squeezing out
a few kids makes your house in to a home. Maybe home is a cemetary
where all the family, its hopes and dreams of a free, democratic
country, are buried in the dust. Yet home is already present, and
no amount of going there will ever get you where you already are.

There is a kernel of marketing truth in your home/house thing, that
is very valuable to the new framers of the Dean-take-back-the-country
thing... and i look forward to seeing their work.

[ComerPerro]

10. Well, someone called them home

[housewolf]

11. "home" is personal

I've never used (or even heard) the phrases you mention:
"Does anyone say, "We're in the last home on the right" or "we're going to paint our home?""

I use the term "home" when I speak of the interenal, personal space where I (or you) live - as "I'm going home," "would you like to come home with me," "you have a lovely home," etc.

I use the term "house" to refer to the exterior - "it's the 3rd house on the right," "I'll meet you at your house," etc.

People go house-hunting in order to find a new home.

Realtors know the emotional impact of the word "home" so they will sell your house but help you find a new home. It helps a seller detach from the emotional attachment to their current residence and transfer it to their new place. I don't necessarily think that is so bad.

So to me, some gorgeous houses slid down the hill in Laguna Beach, and some people lost their homes (and their houses).

What's the issue here? :shrug:

[Gruenemann]

13. Is 'house' used more for negative connotations?

Flophouse
Whorehouse
House of ill repute
Gregory House (actually, no; that's an allusion to Sherlock Holmes)

Then there's the class thing--a 'housekeeper' is a poorly-paid servant; a 'homemaker' is the lady of the manor.

[housewolf]

17. no, not more negative -- just less personal

less emotional attachment

Firehouse is home to fire trucks and temmporary home to fire fighters
Boarding house is home to some individuals who live there


The White House is America's house but home to only 1 family (and a temporary home at that!)

house is a structure, home is where you personally (or someone else personally) lives. It's not a home unless I live there or I can relate it specifically to someone or ones who live there, then it's their home.

home implies possession and residence - house is a structure

Flop house is home to some individuals personally
whorehouse is home to some individuals personally

[Bluebear]

19. Can I call you homewolf? :)

[Ron Green]

16. I think the issue for me is the use of the word "home" to mean "house,"

chiefly by the real estate business.

[KansDem]

12. "It takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home,"

Home
by Edgar Guest

It takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home,
A heap o' sun an' shadder, an' ye sometimes have t' roam
Afore ye really 'preciate the things ye lef' behind,
An' hunger fer 'em somehow, with 'em allus on yer mind.
It don't make any differunce how rich ye get t' be,
How much yer chairs an' tables cost, how great yer luxury;
I ain't home t' ye, though it be the palace of a king,
Until somehow yer soul is sort o' wrapped round everything.

Home ain't a place that gold can buy or get up in a minute;
Afore it's home there's got t' be a heap o' livin' in it;
Within the walls there's got t' be some babies born, and then
Right there ye've got t' bring 'em up t' women good, an' men;
And gradjerly, as time goes on, ye find ye wouldn't part
With anything they ever used -- they've grown into yer heart:
The old high chairs, the playthings, too, the little shoes they wore
Ye hoard; an' if ye could ye'd keep the thumb marks on the door.

Ye've got t' weep t' make it home, ye've got t' sit an' sigh
An' watch beside a loved one's bed, an' know that Death is nigh;
An' in the stillness o' the night t' see Death's angel come,
An' close the eyes o' her that smiled,
an' leave her sweet voice dumb.
Fer these are scenes that grip the heart,
an' when yer tears are dried,
Ye find the home is dearer than it was, an' sanctified;
An' tuggin' at ye always are the pleasant memories
O' her that was an' is no more -- ye can't escape from these.

Ye've got t' sing an' dance fer years, ye've got t' romp an' play,
An' learn t' love the things ye have by usin' 'em each day;
Even the roses 'round the porch must blossom year by year
Afore they 'come a part o' ye, suggestin' someone dear
Who used t' love 'em long ago, an' trained 'em jes' t' run
The way they do, so's they would get the early mornin' sun;
Ye've got t' love each brick an' stone from cellar up t' dome:
It takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home.

-----©1916

[BiggJawn]

14. It's a small thing to piss about.

Home is where you hang your Hat.
I don't care if they want to call them "Wombs" next.

[Withywindle]

20. Thank you SO MUCH

I thought I was the only one annoyed by this. Sure, it's a small thing, but it has always rubbed me the wrong way, as a cheapening of both language and the concept of "home" itself.


Makes me think of people buying grossly-inflated-price McMansions in sterile, shoddy developments, or snapping up fugly condos in "hot neighborhoods" (which of course drive out working-class people who've lived there for generations) in the city as "investments" and then after a while wonder why they start feeling rootless and unhappy and start going to multi-hundred-dollar yoga classes and babbling about "cocooning" and shit.

[Ron Green]

21. I think there's great power in language,

and the choice of words, whether by design or custom, for what is meaningful to us, guides how we live.

One glaring example in English is the word "love," which we harness to so many different concerns and concepts that it lacks the power to express its highest meaning.

And "home" is in the same peril, thanks to the McMarketers.