Re: CHAT: living conditions/conditionally Re: Miscellaneous Nonsense

artabanos@MAIL.UTEXAS.EDU writes:

> I've always wondered about the distribution of this phrase -- "chest of
> drawers".
>  My mother uses it, but I've always used "dresser" or "bureau".  Are there
> any
>  dialects this is associated with?
I've never heard anyone born in Tennessee use the word "bureau" in that
context :)

Around here, a "chest of drawers" (or as people around here say
"chester-drawers) is the very tall thing in whatever room you use to get
dressed. It has nothing but drawers, usually 5 or 6. A "dresser" is the
shorter thing that has rows of drawers and many times a mirror also. Besides
the mirror and, obviously, the height, I still don't know any functional
difference between the two.