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I heard this term for the first time recently in many many years. I wonder if it is more common in certain geographic locations, more common in lower socionomic circles. Also the pronunciation. Growing up, we would pronounce it "frun troom" or "frunch room".
It refers to the living room in a home. These were in the front of the house in small Chicago two-flats.
The person I heard use it was refering to a family room in a large, expensive, suburban home. It seemed out of place to me.
"Front room" was what we called it at home when I was growing up, although the outside world seemed to prefer "living room". We didn't have a "family room" until I was about ten, when we moved to a new house that had one separate from the living room (the family room was in the back, so the living room was obviously the "front" room). It was only much later that I started to hear other terms like "great room" or "Arizona room".
There was a bit in the last season of "Monty Python" in which an older couple argue about whether to stack a collection of important people (who have landed in their home after being thrown out of a zeppelin; it's Python, after all) in the "sitting room" or the "drawing room". More than once they get the two terms confused.
Growing up in northern, and then southern MN, we always called it the "front room". After moving out on my own I started saying, "living room". I don't know if someone made fun or me, or what, but for some reason I'm self-conscious about using "front room". I've also noticed this about supper/dinner. But when I go back to my parents' I still slip into using "front room".
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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