Albeit

Here's a phrase that could have come from any 'literary' novel:

The house was warm and comfortably furnished, albeit in a style several decades out of date.*

See? It's my belief that this type of 'literary' writing is just filler. Back in the day of Dickens, novelists were paid by the word, not by the story. So for awhile using more words was more important than the story line. And if you've ever read any John Irving, you'll know what I mean.

Here's another thing about the phrase I isolated: it's for women. If you asked any 'normal' American man what this decade's furnishing look like, compared to 'several decades ago, he'd ignore the question and look over your shoulder at the Denny's commercial on TV. Furnishings are not what men EVER spend any time thinking about, assuming that you're not including the electronic contents of his media room.

Furnishing are where men move pillows and throws so they can sit down. Men sit on furnishings. The best furnishings either tilt back or you can put your feet up on them. That's pretty much all men know about furnishings.

Any surface upon a human will comfortably rest his/her butt is generally parallel to the ground, or to be more particular, at right angles to the pull of gravity, and b e positioned close to the height of the knee. That's it. That's furnishings.

Now my wife... Our old neighbor died. We'd never been in her home, what with her paranoia. The house finally sold and about a month after the new neighbors moved in, my wife finally got a look inside. 14 years we lived next door and this was her first look. She came back to tell me that she felt so sorry for the new neighbors, with everything about the house being so OLD!

I asked her if the door worked. She said yes. I asked if they had cabinets and plumbing, and did everything work. She said yes. So then I launched into a soliloquy about 'fashion' v. 'utility' and how being a slave to the first often came at the loss to the second. You already know she didn't hear a word I said. But it doesn't take away from the point I'm making: the business of business is making money and changing 'styles' is all part of it. Compare the changes in computers over the past 15 years. Now those are changes worth paying for. But if you've got a sofa, and you've either trained the cat or de-clawed it, that sofa should last you a life time. How can any intelligent person talk about changes in furnishing styles?! If your butt feels good in a chair, why would you spend money on a different style chair?

Thank you.

And albeit is a perfectly wonderful word that no one teaches anymore!



* Sight Unseen by Robert Goddard