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A very long time ago as a child I lived in Buffalo NY. For some reason the people I knew at that time always referred to what we now know as a "closet" as a "clothes press." I have no idea why? Has anyone else come across this usage? I checked Dictionary.com and found "clothes room" as a synonym for "closet."
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carl:
I've never heard of calling a closet a clothes press, but I wonder if this goes back to the days when there weren't any closets, and people commonly had a piece of furniture for storing hanging clothes.
It's commonly called a wardrobe in the US; I think in Germany it is a Schrunk, perhaps Schrunck.
I assume it comes from the sense of press of being in a crowd, since the clothes are all crowded together.
I just saw one at an auction, solid chestnut, perhaps 150 years old, with shiplap back. Unfortunately some butcher had cut a hole in the back so his television would fit in the thing. A thousand dollar wardrobe in any big city antique store, and this guy used a saber saw to reduce its value to less than $150. I bid on it up to $70 or so because I wanted the wood to make some boxes out of. It had zero antique value. Sigh.
These were very common when people built houses without closets; my house is an example. At one time it had a central hallway that divided the upper half of the house. In one of many additions, the hallway was divided into closets and access granted to one bedroom by cutting a door through from another bedroom. I'm in the process of undoing this. I'll be building wardrobes for those three bedrooms that now share a chopped up hallway as closet space.
I wonder whether people who had clothes presses just called their closets that after builders began to put closets in bedrooms.
TEd
TEd
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I think in Germany it is a Schrunk, perhaps Schrunck.
An armoire or wardrobe is called a Schrank (or also a Garderobe) in German. Googling for "clothes press" shows various pieces of antique furniture for storing clothes in.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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>this guy used a saber saw to reduce its value to less than $150.
admitting I know nothing about antiques now -- couldn't you restore much of the value here through restoration of the back?
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Unfortunately, no. It's impossible to get chestnut wood, due to the blight or whatever it was that killed off the huge forests of them here in the US. I've seen pictures of chestnut stumps with eight or ten men standing on the flat surface of one stump. The forests must have been simply awesome.
Alas, the only chestnut now available is from other furniture and from old barns and other outbuildings. And it would be impossible to make a new part that would match the rest of the old piece of furniture. It would always be identifiable as a major repair. In addition, it would probably be unethical to even try to do so. Certainly the antique value would go way way down.
TEd
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Well I think that Ted's suggestion is almost certainly true. I had not thought of using Google. Now that I am reminded of it my Grandparents had wardrobes, which I am sure they called clothes presses and that name probably migrated to actual closets as Ted guessed.
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Hadn't thought about this for many years, but my granny's house had one closet in it, which was in the dining room, and she always called it "the press." This was in Eastern Kentucky.
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and --(i think-) i am sure(well, i think i am sure)
there are small kitchen cabines, called a pie safe or pie press". I think Press was used as a name for a cabinet of a sort. (in times past. (nowdays, most homes don't have pie safe's, or if they do, they don't use them for pie's.)
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old hand
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I've heard of a clothes press quite often; I think it is fairly British. Another British term is 'linen press'; this is, as the name states, a place to put bed linen or bed clothes. I never really considered where the 'press' came from but I guess I assumed it came from the wringing out of cloth in those old-fashioned presses, or alternatively, that it had something to do with a clothes press such as this one: http://www.hammacher.com/publish/70951.aspRe. Garderobe This is also used in English (as in German) to describe both a wardrobe and changing room. Though certainly it is not as common as in German. http://makeashorterlink.com/?L275638AB
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my (ex) in laws had an iron like that--they called it a 'mangle' (which i thought to be a funny name, since to mangle is to mess up, tie in knots--generally, the opposite of ironed..)
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Two different words, with two different histories: one from chewing to bits and the other from mangonel a machine of war.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Well, I'm certainly learning a lot of stuff today. I didn't know garderobe was used in English and German.
It's pretty self explanatory in French with garde meaning "keep" and robe meaning "dress." So it is a place to keep dresses - a closet. It is pretty much the only term we use for a closet in Québec. Well, apart from saying the word closet with a French accent, which the language police abosolutely hate.
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Pooh-Bah
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Around here a wardrobe is a separate piece of furniture while a closet is part of the house and a clothes press is a word in a historical novel.
edit well, two words if you want accuracy
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I've only ever heard/seen garderobe in historical contexts to describe the sanitary facilities or lack thereof in mediaevel castles. IIRC garderobe is said to have started off as gardez robe, i.e., mind your clothes while using the facilities (usually just a hole in the floor of a small room built into the castle wall over the moat). As time went by, this small room developed other uses, mainly as a place to keep clothes, and then into the item of furniture used today. With the passing of time the word also settled down in the modern form of wardrobe.
Bingley
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referred to what we now know as a "closet" as a "clothes press." I have no idea why? Has anyone else come across this usage?
In my high school days I was a boarder (live-in student) at a Catholic school. (Girls only.) The rooms did not have closets. The closets for each room was the door next to the room door and accessible from the hall. They were called the clothes press.
In a similar vein - when I visited Ireland I was introduced to the "airing cupboard" which was a clothes press with heat in it to take the chill off clothes that were brought in from hanging to dry outside. Neat idea!
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Pooh-Bah
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this small room developed other uses, mainly as a place to keep clothes
Good heavens! as if the era wasn't aromatic enough without storing your clothes in the biffy.
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> biffy
man! I haven't heard that for years!!
formerly known as etaoin...
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for years
For years? I ain' never heard it.
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heh. well, that's what we allus called it when I was growin' up. I think my Mom still uses the term.
edit: ah ha! Bartleby says:
biffy
SYLLABICATION: bif·fy
VARIANT FORMS: also biff
NOUN: Inflected forms: pl. bif·fies also biffs
Upper Midwest 1. An outdoor toilet; an outhouse. 2. An indoor toilet.
ETYMOLOGY: Perhaps alteration of privy.
(bold emphasis mine)
formerly known as etaoin...
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In reply to:
I visited Ireland I was introduced to the "airing cupboard" which was a clothes press with heat in it to take the chill off clothes that were brought in from hanging to dry outside. Neat idea!
You mean you don't have airing cupboards over there? What do you do with your clothes if it starts to rain before they're dry?
Bingley
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formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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If I catch them before the showers, I spread them out on the furniture until they dry, then put them away. Here in the Caribbean, the sun can be shining and it's raining anyway. Then I just leave them on the line a little longer than anticipated...*sigh*
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outhouse
Aha! Din't have a whole lot a them in Chicago, not even back when I was growing up. In scouts we called them kybos.
it was an acronym
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> kybos
not sure I want to work that one out....
formerly known as etaoin...
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Keep yer britches on straight?
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keep
your
BMs
out
side
(prolly a mite too literal)
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Pooh-Bah
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Carpal Tunnel
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Oh, OK. In white for those who wish to continue playing:
Keep Your Bowels Open
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Pooh-Bah
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keep your bowels open shithead?
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Carpal Tunnel
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The S is the plural marker, duh!
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Pooh-Bah
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>>plural marker
(slapping forehead) I'm beside myself!
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