The Lady Guide to Modern Manners: 25 October
Dear Thomas,
Can you tell me the difference between having a ‘drawing room’ and a ‘sitting room’? I have a friend who always refers to his ‘sitting room’ as a ‘drawing room’. I am confused as his is not a very large or particularly grand room! He also refers to my sitting room (of moderate proportions) as a drawing room. Is it simply about how ‘posh’ one is, or is there a real difference?
Sue Marchant, Norfolk
Dear Sue,
Let me confess – I am myself an ardent and ferocious drawingroom-ist. But oh, it is a thorny topic. You’re quite right to point out that ‘drawing room’ implies grandeur both in the proportions of the room and its contents. A ‘sitting room’, on the other hand, is a more modest a air.
In great houses or palaces there might well be both for different purposes. You can be sure the Queen has a sitting room in Buckingham Palace where she reads the Racing Post and watches television, activities she would not pursue in the three drawing rooms that come in different colours: yellow, green and white. These are the state or public rooms where magazines and odd bits of knitting-in-progress are banished.
Edith Wharton, the late 19th century American novelist of high birth, once got told off by her mother for writing: ‘She quickly tidied the drawing room before the visitor came in.’
‘Drawing rooms are never untidy,’ her mother declared.
The term became established some time in the 18th century. Originally, it was a ‘withdrawing room’, a room into which you withdrew after dinner or just for seclusion – so not necessarily a ‘public’ room for entertaining. But subsequently a clear distinction was established between ‘sitting’ and ‘drawing’ rooms, although both, essentially, are for sitting in.
But what about that mammoth in the room – class? Well, ‘drawing room’ is posh. But then so is ‘sitting room’ – just a more down-to-earth posh. The ‘non-posh’ terms are ‘lounge’, ‘lounge area’ (Australian, I believe) and ‘living room’.
Oh dear! What is to be done? Well, ‘lounge’ is perfectly all right in a hotel, but not in a home. ‘Living room’ always sounds to me like ‘liver room’ and anyway, surely people are more alive in the garden or kitchen than sitting on the sofa, absorbing TV? People shouldn’t use these terms unless they’re wilfully determined not to be posh.
So let’s keep it simple. Your main reception is your best room, where you pamper yourself on upholstery and keep your best things. Why shouldn’t it be a drawing room? Drawing rooms for all, I say.
Please send your questions to Thomas.blaikie@lady.co.uk or write to him at The Lady, 39-40 Bedford Street, London WC2E 9ER
Perhaps Mr Brearey is trying to make the point that it’s less than diplomatic to issue invitations (or indeed discuss forthcoming social occasions) in the presence of those not invited, just as it is among grown-ups. Isn’t this a call for discretion? Parents and children can do what they like at home, although it would be mean to invite all your child’s class, bar two.
Children must also learn who might be hurt if they are left off the list and not to seek deliberately to hurt by these means. Equally, they can’t invite everybody unless they’re massively rich.
There’s a lot of learning in inviting.
Can you tell me the difference between having a ‘drawing room’ and a ‘sitting room’? I have a friend who always refers to his ‘sitting room’ as a ‘drawing room’. I am confused as his is not a very large or particularly grand room! He also refers to my sitting room (of moderate proportions) as a drawing room. Is it simply about how ‘posh’ one is, or is there a real difference?
Sue Marchant, Norfolk
Dear Sue,
Let me confess – I am myself an ardent and ferocious drawingroom-ist. But oh, it is a thorny topic. You’re quite right to point out that ‘drawing room’ implies grandeur both in the proportions of the room and its contents. A ‘sitting room’, on the other hand, is a more modest a air.
In great houses or palaces there might well be both for different purposes. You can be sure the Queen has a sitting room in Buckingham Palace where she reads the Racing Post and watches television, activities she would not pursue in the three drawing rooms that come in different colours: yellow, green and white. These are the state or public rooms where magazines and odd bits of knitting-in-progress are banished.
Edith Wharton, the late 19th century American novelist of high birth, once got told off by her mother for writing: ‘She quickly tidied the drawing room before the visitor came in.’
‘Drawing rooms are never untidy,’ her mother declared.
The term became established some time in the 18th century. Originally, it was a ‘withdrawing room’, a room into which you withdrew after dinner or just for seclusion – so not necessarily a ‘public’ room for entertaining. But subsequently a clear distinction was established between ‘sitting’ and ‘drawing’ rooms, although both, essentially, are for sitting in.
But what about that mammoth in the room – class? Well, ‘drawing room’ is posh. But then so is ‘sitting room’ – just a more down-to-earth posh. The ‘non-posh’ terms are ‘lounge’, ‘lounge area’ (Australian, I believe) and ‘living room’.
Oh dear! What is to be done? Well, ‘lounge’ is perfectly all right in a hotel, but not in a home. ‘Living room’ always sounds to me like ‘liver room’ and anyway, surely people are more alive in the garden or kitchen than sitting on the sofa, absorbing TV? People shouldn’t use these terms unless they’re wilfully determined not to be posh.
So let’s keep it simple. Your main reception is your best room, where you pamper yourself on upholstery and keep your best things. Why shouldn’t it be a drawing room? Drawing rooms for all, I say.
Please send your questions to Thomas.blaikie@lady.co.uk or write to him at The Lady, 39-40 Bedford Street, London WC2E 9ER
WHAT TO DO IF… YOU ARE ISSUING INVITATIONS
Mark Brearey, head teacher of Kingswood Preparatory School in Bath, has ruled controversially that no invitations are to be issued in school unless the whole class is included. Exclusion, he says, goes against the Christian ethos of his academy. But parents complain that they have neither the means nor facilities to invite 30 children. Is it really so terrible if 15 of the 30 are left out? Don’t children have to learn how it is in real life?Perhaps Mr Brearey is trying to make the point that it’s less than diplomatic to issue invitations (or indeed discuss forthcoming social occasions) in the presence of those not invited, just as it is among grown-ups. Isn’t this a call for discretion? Parents and children can do what they like at home, although it would be mean to invite all your child’s class, bar two.
Children must also learn who might be hurt if they are left off the list and not to seek deliberately to hurt by these means. Equally, they can’t invite everybody unless they’re massively rich.
There’s a lot of learning in inviting.