Parlour or Parlor

[David Myer]

I had cause today to consider this word. A parlour, from the French parler, to speak, was originally a room in which to converse.

But today we have funeral parlours or beauty parlours or massage parlours and in America, pizza parlors. Not much to do with talking, although I suppose there is nothing stopping you if you want to exchange pleasantries with your barber.

But as a small boy, I remember the front room of my grandparents' very modest house being called the parlour. Of course no-one ever went into it - it was reserved for those special occasions that never ended up being special enough for the room to be used. The best furniture containing never-used crockery was stored here. The door was always shut and we were forbidden from entry lest we cause some mischief and break something precious.

This was all terribly sad on reflection, because the room was never used and the family endured life entirely in the cramped and dismal quarters out the back.

Compare that notion with the pictures from Wikipedia's explanation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parlour
I love the idealised picture of the baroque interior, supposedly a parlour.

Not far removed from a boudoir to which the ladies would withdraw after lunch or dinner. I love that boudoir comes also from the French but this time from bouder, to sulk; a sulking room. How civilised is that?

[Slava]

I just found out that another word for parlor is locutorium. Fun.

[Dr. Goodword]

I recall a similar parlor in my grandmother's house. The only time it being used was for the viewing of my grandfather, who passed away when I was about 5 years old.

It was never heated. I remember that because it was where Ma's (as we all called her) piano stood. The grandchildren were not prohibited from entry but most had no reason to go there.

I was fascinated by the piano and, when alone, I immediately went up there. I figured out its logic and taught myself how to make chords on it and pick out melodies, but never how to join the two.

Then my grandmother bought my two sisters a piano and mother tried to get them to take piano lessons seriously, I asked her to pay for lessons for me, which I took much more seriously.

In fact, neither of my sisters wanted to practice and I convinced them to let me use their practice time. Mother was busy in the kitchen and was happy to hear piano music coming from the living room; she didn't know who was making it.

I was a professional jazz pianist by the age of 16, playing with three or four highschool kids in the Catbird Combo at nearby Fort Bragg non-com officers' clubs on weekends. The spark that lit that particular fuse was in Ma's parlor.

[David Myer]

Splendid story, Doctor. And I am confident your Ma's parlor had a similar smell to my grandmother's.