Re: CHAT: Miscellaneous Nonsense

> Date:         Thu, 17 Aug 2000 21:26:06 -0400
> From:         Padraic Brown <pbrown@...>
>
> On Thu, 17 Aug 2000, Danny Wier wrote:
>
> >First of all, why is a "studio apartment" called "studio"?
>
> Perhaps because artists work in studios. Starving artists
> work in their apartments; thus their apartments are, in
> fact, studio-apartments. Your's is truly a studio apartment
> cos you're an artist working in your studio.
But that ought to be at least a 200 square meter room at the top of a
building, with half the roof consisting of glass, to give the daylight
the painter or sculptor needs. In such a place, starving artists are
supposed not to care that they are freezing in winter and melting in
summer --- and they'll go to the cheap local cafe to eat (on credit),
so they don't need kitchen facilities anyway.

I'm sure all such places have been bought up by yuppies by now, and
cheap cafes and credit have gone the same way --- but using the word
for a soulless windowless walk-in closet is still a crime against my
romantic sensibilities.

The right word is bedsitter. But I suppose that doesn't sell as well.

(Cf. the way 'en-suite' in Britain has gone from meaning accomodations
with separate bathroom, bedroom, and sitting room connected by doors,
to a single room with a toilet and shower built into a closet).

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)